Matthew Benns | November 30, 2008
A CAREER criminal and long-time friend of former NSW Crime Commission assistant director Mark Standen was last week jailed for 18 years for drug smuggling.
John Anderson, 68, had been found guilty for his part in attempting to smuggle more than $11 million in cocaine into Australia inside watertight containers chained to the hulls of cargo ships, including the Tampa.
Anderson's son Michael, 30, was jailed for 10 years for helping his father by buying scuba gear and diving under the cargo vessels to retrieve the drugs.
In the District Court last week judge Leonie Flannery said John Anderson was motivated "by greed, whereas I accept his son's motivation was misguided loyalty".
She said Michael, who had no previous criminal record, believed his father was attempting to smuggle emeralds and had agreed to help in the hope it would draw them closer together.
Earlier this year The Sun-Herald revealed the long friendship between John Anderson and top cop Standen, who is now awaiting trial for his alleged part in an unrelated, $120 million global drug conspiracy.
Their 30-year friendship involved regular visits by Standen to Anderson's Central Coast home. Standen's bail application is due on Wednesday before a committal date is due to be set on December 17. Australian Federal Police officers are currently preparing a brief from material obtained overseas.
The AFP investigation into Standen began in the same month that customs officers in New Zealand intercepted Anderson's cocaine shipment from Central America.
Anderson attempted to ship more than $8 million in cocaine in a sealed container chained to the hull of the Tampa and more than $3 million in cocaine chained under the cargo ship Taronga.
In her summary of the facts Judge Flannery said police had traced calls made by Anderson to a contact in Panama.
A search of his properties found plastic containers, similar to the ones used in the failed smuggling operation, containing traces of cocaine.
She was convinced the smuggling operation was not "just a one-off". Judge Flannery added: "I am satisfied there was a level of sophistication at the Panama end."
Before sentencing him she said Anderson had a long criminal history. But The Sun-Herald has revealed that he has also been quizzed by police over a number of unsolved crimes. There is no suggestion that Standen was involved in these events.
Anderson, who suffers from a series of ailments including hepatitis C, has been questioned over the murder of 18-year-old Trudie Adams on the northern beaches in 1978. Her death has been linked to a string of rapes around the same time.
Police insiders have described links to Anderson as "an underworld mosaic" with the other man suspected of Adams's murder being linked to the 1991 execution of former Australian light-heavyweight boxer and heroin dealer Roy Thurgar.
Anderson was also the last person to see Ante Yelavich alive. He was murdered in 1985.
Source: The Sun-Herald
Sunday, November 30, 2008
Monday, October 27, 2008
Good Cop, Bad Cop - Four Corners 27/10/2008
[Disclaimer: The Parliamentary Library does not warrant or accept liability for the accuracy or usefulness of the transcripts. These are copied directly from the broadcaster's website.]
Sally Neighbour investigates what’s wrong inside Australia’s Federal Police.
Reporter: Sally Neighbour
(Excerpt of News footage of bombing at Sydney Hilton Hotel)
SALLY NEIGHBOUR: The Indian Prime Minister was among 13 Commonwealth heads of government staying at the hotel.
The bomb killed two garbage men and one policeman.
SALLY NEIGHBOUR: In the aftermath of Australia’s first terrorist bombing, at Sydney’s Hilton Hotel in the seventies, a brand new police force burst onto the scene.
(End of Excerpt)
(Excerpt from Four Corners Episode, 1979)
SALLY NEIGHBOUR: These police officers are members of the newly formed Australian Federal Police.
They’re part of a section of the force known as the Protective Service Unit.
AUSTRALIAN FEDERAL POLICE OFFICER: That was a good entry, only lost one. What did you do wrong?
SALLY NEIGHBOUR: They’re training to be Australia’s frontline troops in the war against international terrorism.
AUSTRALIAN FEDERAL POLICE OFFICER 2: You never know, that could happen any day.
(END OF EXCERPT)
SALLY NEIGHBOUR: The Australian Federal Police would become Australia’s premier police force.
But 29 years on, it’s them in the firing line.
In the wake of the Mohammed Haneef case, the AFP have found themselves derided as Keystone Cops, accused of incompetence, secrecy and playing politics.
WAYNE SIEVERS, FORMER AFP OFFICER: The pattern from the 1980s right through to Haneef is a culture of obsessive secrecy, the avoidance of accountability.
SALLY NEIGHBOUR: Commissioner Keelty, at one time lauded as a public hero, has even faced calls to resign.
PETER FARIS QC, FORMER CHAIR NATIONAL CRIME AUTHORITY: I think Keelty’s time is up and I think he should retire gracefully and if he doesn’t, um well then I think he should be sacked.
Page 1 of 16 EMMS - Transcript/Captions Details
SALLY NEIGHBOUR: Tonight on 4 Corners, we examine the AFP’s rise, and its fall from grace, and ask what went wrong? Was it simply one mishandled case? Or do the Federal Police have serious problems that need to be addressed?
(On Screen Text: Good Cop Bad Cop, Reporter: Sally Neighbour)
SALLY NEIGHBOUR: Created in 1979, the AFP was a merger of the former Commonwealth police and the ACT police in Canberra, with the Federal Narcotics Bureau thrown in. Behind the show of bravado, it was a painful birth.
(Excerpt of footage from Four Corners Episode 1979 - an AFP officer is seen breaking through a window)
RAY COOPER, FORMER AFP INTERNAL AFFAIRS: It was chaotic. The organisations, didn’t know each other, they didn’t like each other, they didn’t and they had no, no sort of will to co-operate with each other.
SALLY NEIGHBOUR: The new force also inspired bitter and enduring hostility among state police, who resented its greater powers such as phone-tapping, and its move into glamour crimes like terrorism, the drug trade and fraud.
MIKE KENNEDY, FORMER NSW DETECTIVE: Well their nickname back in those days was the Plastics. We referred to them as the Plastics because basically they were incompetent, they weren’t real police, they didn’t engage in community based policing.
Everything had to be the biggest and the best, and that brand name protection, that media and marketing aspect of their organisation, where it was about style and it was never about substance.
SALLY NEIGHBOUR: The AFP had its first brush with scandal when major corruption was uncovered inside the Sydney office that housed the Federal Police Drug Unit in the late 1980s.
It’s an episode that still rankles with some of those involved, who say it set the pattern for much that has followed. Wayne Sievers was a member of the unit at the time.
WAYNE SIEVERS, FORMER AFP OFFICER: You had theft of drugs, you had people running with criminals, you had prosecutions that were compromised. You had a range of corrupt activities.
SALLY NEIGHBOUR: Superintendent Ray Cooper, now retired, was a commander in AFP Internal Investigations. He began an inquiry, only to have it shut down and handed over to the Sydney office, where corruption was endemic.
RAY COOPER, FORMER AFP INTERNAL AFFAIRS: I believe that the, that that purpose of, or one of the purposes of that group was to, was to get these, to discredit the informants and, and cover up the AFP’s activities in Sydney.
SALLY NEIGHBOUR: And was that the AFP’s agenda as you saw it?
RAY COOPER, FORMER AFP INTERNAL AFFAIRS: Well I was told I was told by the Commissioner and others that you know, don’t, don’t make any trouble in Sydney because Sydney Drug Unit is the only Drug
Unit that is effective, don’t make any trouble in Sydney. We, we don’t want to make any trouble in Sydney.
SALLY NEIGHBOUR: The rot was left to fester until it erupted publicly several years later during the Wood Royal Commission into the NSW Police.
(Excerpt of News footage)
SALLY NEIGHBOUR: The most recent allegations of systemic corruption came from former federal
Page 2 of 16 EMMS - Transcript/Captions Details detective Alan Taciak who claims a long standing cell of corrupt Federal Detectives has been ignored.
(End of Excerpt)
SALLY NEIGHBOUR: A separate inquiry was ordered into the AFP by a new Federal Government eager to squelch the scandal. It was conducted in private, its report never released.
RAY COOPER, FORMER AFP INTERNAL AFFAIRS: I thought it was wrong, very wrong. I don’t think the AFP can hold its head up about how it, how it can handle its own, well in those days how it can handle its own problems. Ah covering it up is in my view is not the answer.
(Excerpt of footage from December 1996)
MICK KEELTY, AFP COMMISSIONER: And hopefully that will lead to higher profile targeting -
SALLY NEIGHBOUR: The officer in charge of implementing the inquiry’s findings was Assistant Commissioner, Mick Keelty, the rising star of the force. Keelty also won Government plaudits for carriage of the much-vaunted war on drugs. A graduate of the FBI training academy, he was one of a new breed of politically savvy professionals moving up the ranks.
(End of Excerpt)
WAYNE SIEVERS, FORMER AFP OFFICER: He was part of group of people who I’d characterise who came up from Canberra, who, who were keen to reinvent themselves as anti-corruption busters if you like. They were smooth, they were slick, they were polished and they were extremely ambitious people and they were prepared to form the necessary relationships with politicians to get on in this world.
(Excerpt of News footage of Commissioner Keelty being sworn in as Commissioner)
MICK KEELTY, AFP COMMISSIONER: I, Michael Joseph Keelty, do swear that I will be faithful and be a true -
SALLY NEIGHBOUR: Mick Keelty was promoted to Commissioner in 2001. He had cemented his
reputation as a skilled investigator, a decent bloke and a canny political operator.
(End of Excerpt)
ARTHUR SINODINOS, FORMER PM JOHN HOWARD’S CHIEF OF STAFF: I think from day one he was conscious that he needed to make sure he looked after the various stakeholders that were relevant to the AFP. And the Prime Minister, the Prime Minister’s Office were important stakeholders from his point of view.
(Excerpt of footage of September 11 terrorist attacks in New York)
SALLY NEIGHBOUR: Keelty had been in the job only five months when the September 11 attacks on America took place, followed a year later by the Bali bombings.
(End of Excerpt) - (Excerpt of footage of Bali bombings aftermath)
(End of Excerpt)
DAVID BILES, FORMER CHAIRMAN, ACT POLICE CONSULTATIVE BOARD: It’s a terrible thing to say but the Bali bombing occurred and that was a blessing for the AFP in that they were able to act quickly and professionally and everyone admired the way they responded to that terrible event. Ah they’re probably one of the worst terrorism events that have impacted on Australia. So within about 27, 28 years the AFP moved from being an object of derision to an object of admiration.
Page 3 of 16 EMMS - Transcript/Captions Details
(Excerpt of footage of Commissioner Keelty in Indonesia)
SALLY NEIGHBOUR: The AFP’s work in Indonesia won universal praise. Most of the bombers were soon caught, and a string of further attacks was just as quickly solved. Commissioner Keelty was feted around the world, while a grateful nation rewarded the force with virtually whatever it wanted.
(End of Excerpt)
WAYNE SIEVERS, FORMER AFP OFFICER: The AFP was able to reposition itself as the premier intelligence fighting agency and that meant massive injections of money, capital, and a very close relationship with the Government.
SALLY NEIGHBOUR: In the years since September 11, under the banner of the war on terror, the AFP has undergone enormous growth. Its staff numbers have more than doubled while its budget has quadrupled to almost $1.8-billion a year.
It now operates in 33 countries, and spends the bulk of its budget on national security and overseas deployments.
JOHN BROOME, FORMER CHAIR NATIONAL CRIME AUTHORITY: The question I ask is whether we’ve done this at the expense of the AFP’s core budget, whether they’ve taken their eyes off major issues such as drug trafficking, financial crime, issues such as child sex tourism, these kinds of issues which the AFP saw as its main work four or five years ago and which apparently now is not its core business.
SALLY NEIGHBOUR: Former chairman of the National Crime Authority, John Broome, says the shift is reflected in a dramatic drop in the number of criminals charged by the AFP. Cases sent to the DPP for prosecution have fallen by half, from more than a thousand to around 500 a year. And despite the AFP’s massive expansion, John Broome says there’s been a fall in its expertise.
JOHN BROOME, FORMER CHAIR NATIONAL CRIME AUTHORITY: We’ve seen both a growth in the number of AFP personnel with less than five years experience, and a reduction, at least in percentage terms, of those with say more than 15 years of experience. So we’ve lost some of the old heads, the wise heads, and we’ve seen them replaced with large numbers of relatively untried people.
(Excerpt of footage of Wayne Sievers campaigning)
SALLY NEIGHBOUR: AFP veteran Wayne Sievers left the force eight years ago to pursue a career in politics.
WAYNE SIEVERS, FORMER AFP OFFICER: Good evening, and thank you all very much for coming here tonight, I'll just slip my glasses -
SALLY NEIGHBOUR: He’s now an outspoken critic of the Federal Police.
WAYNE SIEVERS, FORMER AFP OFFICER: Put simply, the lives of ordinary Australians are adversely affected, sometimes quite profoundly, when the powerful and the arrogant are unaccountable. The Australian Federal Police is one case in point.
(End of Excerpt) - (Excerpt of footage of conflict in East Timor)
SALLY NEIGHBOUR: Back in 1999, Sievers was in East Timor serving with the United Nations, when he received intelligence that military-backed militias opposed to independence were planning a massacre. The warnings were ignored by Australian authorities, and a bloodbath ensued.
Sievers and his AFP colleagues earned a group citation for bravery during the turmoil.
WAYNE SIEVERS, FORMER AFP OFFICER: We're here to do our job and we'll carry on.
SALLY NEIGHBOUR: He later went public to criticise the authorities for failing to stop the slaughter. As a result, he was targeted for investigation for unlawful disclosure of Commonwealth information, causing him to resign in 2000.
(End of Excerpt)
WAYNE SIEVERS, FORMER AFP OFFICER: I understood then that our organisation was well and truly on the road to being political, that it was not giving the fearless and frank advice, that’s it was working in effect to look after the Government’s image.
SALLY NEIGHBOUR: Wayne Sievers is not alone in holding this view. It’s a concern that’s shared by many working police.
JIM TORR, CEO, AUSTRALIAN FEDERAL POLICE ASSOCIATION: There is a concern that the broader public perceive the AFP to have been manipulated, that some in the broader public perceive that. That is a concern to us because everything we do, the most important thing to us is the trust of the public.
(Excerpt of footage of Madrid train bombings, March 2004)
SALLY NEIGHBOUR: Since the advent of the war on terror, policing has become highly politically charged. This was starkly illustrated in the wake of the al Qaeda train bombings in Madrid in March 2004.
(End of Excerpt)
(On Screen Text: Sunday 14 March 2004)
MICK KEELTY, AFP COMMISSIONER: If this turns out to be Islamic extremists responsible for this bombing in Spain, it’s more likely to be linked to the position that Spain and other allies took on issues such as Iraq.
(End of Excerpt)
SALLY NEIGHBOUR: This seemingly simple observation by Commissioner Keelty provoked a political storm, because it was at odds with the Government's view and implied that Australia too could become a target because of its support for the war in Iraq.
ARTHUR SINODINOS, FORMER PM JOHN HOWARD’S CHIEF OF STAFF: I’d seen the interview ah and I rang the, the Prime Minister about it because I said I think this is going to cause us a problem. I spoke to the PM about that. And he said ‘Well ring Mick and let him know that I’m very concerned about this because ah you know, the way it could be interpreted, etcetera’.
SALLY NEIGHBOUR: Keelty came under withering attack, including this from the then Foreign Minister Alexander Downer.
(On Screen Text: 16 March 2004)
ALEXANDER DOWNER, FORMER FOREIGN AFFAIRS MINISTER: He is just expressing a view which reflects a lot of the propaganda we’re getting from al Qaeda.
SALLY NEIGHBOUR: After two days of it, both Keelty and the Government had had enough.
(Excerpt of footage of John Howard speaking on radio, vision of The Australia Newspaper, headline "PM sought Keelty Backdown")
Page 5 of 16 EMMS - Transcript/Captions Details
(End of Excerpt)
ARTHUR SINODINOS, FORMER PM JOHN HOWARD’S CHIEF OF STAFF: Well it had been agreed on the Sunday that if things got to a point where they needed to be clarified well there’d have to be some form of clarification.
SALLY NEIGHBOUR: Keelty’s statement of clarification said he’d been taken out of context, and echoed the Government’s line that terrorism seeks to attack our liberal democratic values, no matter what our involvement in East Timor, Afghanistan or Iraq.
The Government was clearly pleased.
(Excerpt of News footage from 19 March 2004)
SALLY NEIGHBOUR: Can you shake hands?
JOHN HOWARD, FORMER PRIME MINISTER: We did that downstairs, but I'm delighted to do it again. (Laughs) I have total confidence in the Federal Police Commissioner. I think he’s doing an excellent job.
(End of Excerpt) - (Excerpt of footage from ABCs Lateline)
ALEXANDER DOWNER, FORMER FOREIGN AFFAIRS MINISTER: He is an outstanding Australian. He’ll go down in history as one of the great police commissioners.
(End of Excerpt)
JIM TORR, CEO, AUSTRALIAN FEDERAL POLICE ASSOCIATION: Some could argue there was an opportunity lost for the AFP to make a bigger point.
SALLY NEIGHBOUR: So you think the Commissioner was seen to buckle too easily?
JIM TORR, CEO, AUSTRALIAN FEDERAL POLICE ASSOCIATION: I think some took that view and I believe some of our members took that view.
SALLY NEIGHBOUR (to Arthur Sinodinos): So are you saying in effect it’s their job to do the bidding of the Government?
ARTHUR SINODINOS, FORMER PM JOHN HOWARD’S CHIEF OF STAFF: Um their job is to work within the framework of, of policy subject of course to not breaking the law.
SALLY NEIGHBOUR: So is it their job to do the bidding of Government as long as it’s legal?
ARTHUR SINODINOS, FORMER PM JOHN HOWARD’S CHIEF OF STAFF: Ah in my view it is. SALLY NEIGHBOUR (to Jim Torr): How do police feel about being seen to be used for a political agenda?
JIM TORR, CEO, AUSTRALIAN FEDERAL POLICE ASSOCIATION: It’s probably the greatest insult you could give a constable, and to, as an organisation, to be accused of doing a Government’s bidding is an insult to an entire organisation.
SALLY NEIGHBOUR: Commissioner Keelty declined repeated requests by Four Corners to discuss the issues raised in this program . The AFP is quick to reject any criticism, and employs a large media management team to promote its successes.
Page 6 of 16 EMMS - Transcript/Captions Details
WAYNE SIEVERS, FORMER AFP OFFICER: The AFP’s management of the media is very good. It seems to me that um, whenever there’s a bad story about to happen, suddenly there’s a drug bust or a paedophile bust or something like that happens on the day or very approximate to the bad news that’s coming out and it drowns out the bad news.
A recent case was the seizure of more than five tonnes of ecstasy, trumpeted by the AFP in August as the world’s biggest bust.
(Excerpt of News footage of drug bust)
MICK KEELTY, AFP COMMISSIONER: There was a period of time where we got excited about 10 kilos, and now we're talking about tonnage.
(End of Excerpt)
SALLY NEIGHBOUR: Selected reporters were tipped off about the raids in advance and the AFP released its own footage of federal agents in action.
(Excerpt of footage of AFP officers in action)
But behind the scenes was a very different story. Victorian detectives who’d worked on the case were so furious at what they saw as the AFP’s grandstanding, that one of them fired off an internal grievance report to set the record straight.
(Excerpt from Internal Grievance Report)
According to this account, the seizure was the work of VicPol, the Australian Crime Commission and Customs, with virtually no help from the AFP.
It says the Federal Police failed to honour an assurance of providing intelligence, refused to form a joint taskforce, and initially said they could not assist.
By this account, it was only after the massive stash was found that the AFP demanded control of the investigation, in a deliberate strategy to manipulate the situation, to falsely claim full credit by the AFP.
(End of Excerpt)
PETER FARIS QC, FORMER CHAIR NATIONAL CRIME AUTHORITY: We do have a poisonous relationship between the AFP and the state forces because of this competition for publicity and credit for their work, and of course the only people who suffer from that are the public.
SALLY NEIGHBOUR: Within the AFP’s own ranks, there are loyal and long-serving insiders who’ve grown deeply disillusioned with how the force operates.
Gerry Fletcher is a serving AFP officer who’s been 33 years in the job. He holds a masters degree in prevention of transnational crime and is recognised internationally as an organised crime expert. In 2004 he was awarded the Australia Day Medallion for his loyalty and dedication.
GERRY FLETCHER, DETECTIVE-SERGEANT, AFP: It’s been my life. It’s been work that you can go and do and you feel you’re achieving or you have achieved.
SALLY NEIGHBOUR: But it all came crashing down one day in May 2005.
JENNY FLETCHER, GERRY FLETCHER’S WIFE: Gerry rang me at work on the Friday, late Friday afternoon. He said ‘I’ve been suspended from the AFP’. He was in shock.
SALLY NEIGHBOUR: And what was your reaction?
Page 7 of 16 EMMS - Transcript/Captions Details
JENNY FLETCHER, GERRY FLETCHER’S WIFE: I said you’ve got to be kidding me. You’ve been with the AFP 30 years. You’ve got to be kidding me.
SALLY NEIGHBOUR: Six weeks earlier Fletcher had had a meeting in a coffee shop with a well-known drug dealer who was under investigation by the AFP. Fletcher had previously been counselled about meeting informers alone, and had been told not to meet this particular criminal. He reported the meeting afterwards to his superiors, as per AFP rules.
But when the drug-dealer disappeared a month later, causing the collapse of the investigation, Fletcher was accused of tipping off the target. The accusation was false. It was made directly to Commissioner Keelty by NSW Crime Commission officer Mark Standen , who has since been arrested and charged with being part of a drug importation conspiracy.
JENNY FLETCHER, GERRY FLETCHER’S WIFE: There was a false allegation made against Gerry, his integrity was questioned after 30 years, his reputation was trashed.
SALLY NEIGHBOUR: An internal inquiry found Fletcher had not released any information or engaged in corrupt behaviour. But the AFP sacked him anyway, claiming his meeting with the drug dealer brought discredit on the Federal Police.
GERRY FLETCHER, DETECTIVE-SERGEANT, AFP: I just couldn’t get over that, after 32 years, to me it felt like it was, it was a, a frame up, that there was a preconceived outcome before the investigation started.
SALLY NEIGHBOUR: Fletcher’s dismissal was overturned by the Industrial Relations Commission which found it was harsh and not done for a valid reason. The AFP gave him a job back, answering phones.
GERRY FLETCHER, DETECTIVE-SERGEANT, AFP: To me every investigation has to have integrity. Every investigation has to be accountable and transparent. Now with the Australian Government giving a section of money and amounts of money I should say, to the AFP to maintain integrity, it’s that is so that integrity cannot be interfered with or moulded to what they want.
My case shows I would suggest that they’re not getting their value for their money.
SALLY NEIGHBOUR: He may well be risking his job again by speaking out.
RAY COOPER, FORMER AFP INTERNAL AFFAIRS: They won’t like it. They don’t like anyone talking to the, to the media, they don’t like anyone airing anything in public. They ah, they have their secret society and if you speak out then, then they castigate you.
JENNY FLETCHER, GERRY FLETCHER’S WIFE: I believe that there were many senior people who believed that Gerry was the subject of a witch-hunt, but no one had the avenue to actually be able to go and say this is wrong, because if you put your head up you’re going to be in the same position as Gerry. Because you have a culture, headed by a Commissioner who doesn’t like to be told he’s wrong.
SALLY NEIGHBOUR: Mick Keelty’s style of leadership is the subject of growing debate within and outside the AFP. Keelty’s admirers describe a dedicated workaholic, hands-on to a fault, who inspires intense loyalty, and has built the AFP into a force to be reckoned with.
ARTHUR SINODINOS, FORMER PM JOHN HOWARD’S CHIEF OF STAFF: He’s probably been the Police Commissioner who’s been under the most intense pressure and media scrutiny of any
Commissioner.
RAY COOPER, FORMER AFP INTERNAL AFFAIRS: Even with some of the issues that we’ve identified
Page 8 of 16 EMMS - Transcript/Captions Details today, he’s been in my view the best Commissioner the AFP’s had.
SALLY NEIGHBOUR: Keelty’s detractors talk of a presidential-style leader, who won’t tolerate dissent and shuns advice contrary to his own views.
WAYNE SIEVERS, FORMER AFP OFFICER: The AFP is essentially run by an all-powerful CEO. There is no understanding of somebody who raises a loyal voice in opposition or disputes a decision. It is essentially an authoritarian organisation and anyone who’s seen to question the current line that comes from the leader’s office if you like, and I might even describe it as a cult of personality, very soon finds themself on the outer.
And there are a number of very talented, very good people that I know of in recent years or over the years that have left the AFP because they’ve dared to voice a dissenting opinion.
SALLY NEIGHBOUR: The job of policing the AFP falls to the Commonwealth Ombudsman and the Commission for Law Enforcement Integrity, a new agency with a modest budget and only 12 staff. Ombudsman John McMillan says it’s not an easy task.
JOHN MCMILLAN, COMMONWEALTH OMBUDSMAN: I have a very professional relationship with the Australian Federal Police but I do find it more of a challenge than I find it with other Commonwealth agencies. Ah my office is more likely to be told, including from senior levels, that we’re wasting the time of police and that we’re dwelling on trivialities.
SALLY NEIGHBOUR: In his latest report, the Ombudsman describes one instance where an AFP agent began a sexual relationship with a female informant, and another where a number of police being posted overseas swore false statutory declarations to support each others’ passport applications.
In both cases, the AFP was unwilling to admit its members had done anything wrong.
JOHN MCMILLAN, COMMONWEALTH OMBUDSMAN: And our view very strongly was that it was inappropriate. If police are required to uphold the law, they need to uphold it individually and collectively in all instances. As an old adage, a true one, that those who bend the rules end up breaking them and so it is very important to take a stern line at any inappropriate behaviour by those who have the responsibility of enforcing the law.
SALLY NEIGHBOUR: The most intense scrutiny of the AFP’s performance has been prompted by its role in implementing Australia’s new counter-terrorism laws.
Since September 11, no fewer than 44 new anti-terror laws have been passed.
Commissioner Keelty has been a vocal advocate of the new laws.
(Excerpt of News footage)
MICK KEELTY, AFP COMMISSIONER: We obviously support the new legislation being passed -
(End of Excerpt)
SALLY NEIGHBOUR: There’s been markedly less enthusiasm on the part of working police.
JIM TORR, CEO, AUSTRALIAN FEDERAL POLICE ASSOCIATION: The laws are alien to decades, indeed you know, 100 years of policing experience; they’re alien to the office of constable. They are complex, procedurally very complex laws. You add enough procedures or complexity into a process and the likelihood of a technical error increases.
SALLY NEIGHBOUR: AFP management has been eager to use the new laws. In one case an officer
Page 9 of 16 EMMS - Transcript/Captions Details testified that police were directed to lay as many charges under the new legislation against as many suspects as possible to test the laws.
JOHN BROOME, FORMER CHAIR NATIONAL CRIME AUTHORITY: I think that the AFP’s been under very substantial pressure. It’s been under pressure to produce results and by that most people mean arrests and charges.
WAYNE SIEVERS, FORMER AFP OFFICER: I think when you have to rely on extraordinary powers and at the same time you see a loss of skilled investigation capacity from the organisation, frequently as morale plummets, the reliance on extraordinary powers can sometimes make for a lazy investigator.
SALLY NEIGHBOUR: Australia’s biggest terrorism trial ended last month in Melbourne with mixed results, seven men convicted, another four acquitted and one to face a re-trial.
(Excerpt of News footage)
UNIDENTIFIED LAWYER: It's wonderful to live in a democracy where a jury obviously pays this level of attention, to matters like this and worked this hard.
(End of Excerpt)
SALLY NEIGHBOUR: The convictions were an important win for the police after a series of failed prosecutions, like the case of Sydney medical student Izhar Ul-Haque.
His charges of doing terrorist training were dismissed when Justice Adams ruled that he had been kidnapped and falsely imprisoned by ASIO agents, and subjected to oppressive conduct by Federal Police.
(Excerpt of News footage, after Izhar Ul-Haque's trial)
ADAM HOUDA, IZHAR UL-HAQUE'S LAWYER: This has been a moronic prosecution right from the start. The terror laws were introduced supposedly to capture terrorists, not brilliant young men like Izhar Ul-Haque.
From the beginning this was no more than a political show trial, designed to justify the billions of dollars spent on, on counter-terrorism.
(End of Excerpt)
SALLY NEIGHBOUR: After the collapse of the Ul-Haque case, Commissioner Keelty ordered an inquiry presided over by retired NSW Chief Justice, Sir Laurence Street, who now works as a professional mediator.
(To Sir Laurence Street) What was Commissioner Keelty’s brief to you when he set up your inquiry?
SIR LAURENCE STREET, FORMER NSW CHIEF JUSTICE: Well it’s in his terms of reference. The terms of reference are there in the report but it certainly didn’t include and ah this was made, I made this very clear at the outset we were not investigating Ul-Haque.
SALLY NEIGHBOUR: The report highlighted inadequate information sharing and trust issues between ASIO and the AFP, along with a range of operational flaws. But it did not address the most disturbing issues raised by the case.
(To Sir Laurence Street) Did you examine the gross breach of powers that Justice Adams referred to?
SIR LAURENCE STREET, FORMER NSW CHIEF JUSTICE: No. No.
SALLY NEIGHBOUR: What about the false imprisonment and kidnapping?
Page 10 of 16 EMMS - Transcript/Captions Details
SIR LAURENCE STREET, FORMER NSW CHIEF JUSTICE: No. No.
SALLY NEIGHBOUR: Did you examine the oppressive conduct of the AFP?
SIR LAURENCE STREET, FORMER NSW CHIEF JUSTICE: No.
SALLY NEIGHBOUR: Or the fact that ah, that one of its officers gave untruthful evidence?
SIR LAURENCE STREET, FORMER NSW CHIEF JUSTICE: Well now you’re putting adjectives on them. Ah when I saw, no, I'm not embracing those adjectives.
SALLY NEIGHBOUR: No, oh well those were Justice Adams’ words that I’m quoting.
SIR LAURENCE STREET, FORMER NSW CHIEF JUSTICE: Well I still don’t embrace those adjectives.
SALLY NEIGHBOUR: So none of those issues was within your terms of reference?
SIR LAURENCE STREET, FORMER NSW CHIEF JUSTICE: No.
SALLY NEIGHBOUR: Why do you think the AFP didn’t ask you to investigate those matters?
SIR LAURENCE STREET, FORMER NSW CHIEF JUSTICE: Probably because Commissioner Keelty knew my philosophy and that I would not be prepared to undertake an inquiry to attribute blame and who’s right and who’s wrong.
SALLY NEIGHBOUR: Do you think that’s why he chose you?
SIR LAURENCE STREET, FORMER NSW CHIEF JUSTICE: Oh I have no idea, I have no idea. I would, I had some judicial experience and that was important.
SALLY NEIGHBOUR: Of all the terrorism cases, the spotlight has focused most intensely on Dr Mohammed Haneef.
HON SIR GERARD BRENNAN: Well the state has the right to employ to the full, it's arsenal of legal weapons to repress and prevent terrorist activities, it may not use indiscriminate measures which would only undermine the fundamental values they seek to protect.
SALLY NEIGHBOUR: The Haneef case is currently the subject of an inquiry by former NSW Judge John Clarke QC. A disturbing picture is emerging of how the case went so badly wrong.
Haneef’s saga began on the 30th of June last year, when a jeep driven by his second cousin Kafeel Ahmad exploded in flames at Glasgow airport.
Two days later Dr Haneef was arrested at Brisbane airport, where he was waiting to board a plane to India.
Four Corners has obtained the audio recording of Haneef’s interviews with the Federal and Queensland
Police, starting at Brisbane airport.
(Excerpt of audio from police interview 2nd July 2007)
POLICE OFFICER: Do you agree that I told you that you are under arrest for assisting a terrorist organisation or supporting a terrorist organisation?
DR MOHAMMED HANEEF, FORMER TERRORIST SUSPECT: I really don’t, I haven’t supported any organisation.
POLICE OFFICER: I'm just asking you, do you agree that that's what I said to you, when I placed you under arrest.
DR MOHAMMED HANEEF, FORMER TERRORIST SUSPECT: I don't really understand what, what you
Page 11 of 16 EMMS - Transcript/Captions Details mean, I haven't supported any of the terrorist organisations, or anything.
POLICE OFFICER: Okay, we're going to want to ask you a lot of questions okay?
DR MOHAMMED HANEEF, FORMER TERRORIST SUSPECT: Sure sir.
POLICE OFFICER: Probably not quite now, what we initially want to do is conduct a search of you.
DR MOHAMMED HANEEF, FORMER TERRORIST SUSPECT: Sure.
POLICE OFFICER: And also your luggage here.
DR MOHAMMED HANEEF, FORMER TERRORIST SUSPECT: Sure.
(End of Excerpt)
SALLY NEIGHBOUR: The Law Council of Australia says Haneef should never have been detained in the first place.
ROSS RAY QC, PRESIDENT, LAW COUNCIL OF AUSTRALIA: There is no common law power to arrest someone and detain them while you carry out an investigation. You must have that reasonable belief that an offence has been committed.
SALLY NEIGHBOUR: So on the information publicly available, was his arrest unlawful?
ROSS RAY QC, PRESIDENT, LAW COUNCIL OF AUSTRALIA: Ah, yes, it was certainly not justified.
SALLY NEIGHBOUR: Within hours of Haneef’s arrest the politicians had seized on it.
(Excerpt of News footage from 3 July 2007)
JOHN HOWARD, FORMER PRIME MINISTER: I just wanted to make a couple of brief comments about the taking into custody of a man at Brisbane airport last night, the Attorney General and the Federal Police Commissioner have already briefed the media and the Australian public on this issue.
SALLY NEIGHBOUR: The running commentary continued as Haneef’s detention was extended day after day, under the unique provisions of the terrorism laws.
JOHN HOWARD, FORMER PRIME MINISTER: There are people within our midst who would do us harm and evil if they had the opportunity of doing so.
(End of Excerpt) - (Excerpt of News footage from 6 July 2007)
MICK KEELTY, AFP COMMISSIONER: It is quite a complex investigation and the links to the UK are becoming more concrete.
(End of Excerpt)
SALLY NEIGHBOUR: The media and political frenzy only heightened the pressure on the police who were actually working on the case.
JIM TORR, CEO, AUSTRALIAN FEDERAL POLICE ASSOCIATION: It was an incredibly gruelling and intense period. One of them, had 40 hours without sleep, one of our members, such is the chain of the unbroken interviews and while Mr. Haneef’s resting, they’re still gathering material to prepare.
(Re-enactment of Police interview with Dr Haneef)
SALLY NEIGHBOUR: As the investigation entered its second week in July last year, it became steadily
Page 12 of 16 EMMS - Transcript/Captions Details clearer the evidence wasn’t stacking up.
On about July 10th, a senior AFP officer wrote to his superiors, that having reviewed the material in possession of the investigation team, he did not believe there was sufficient evidence to charge Haneef. On July 12th, Commissioner Keelty had a private phone conversation with the Commonwealth DPP, who
was waiting for a plane at Melbourne airport. Keelty said he didn’t think there was a case against Haneef.
The same day, the Immigration Department noted, preliminary advice from the AFP is that there is insufficient evidence to support a criminal charge.
ASIO had already advised that it did not have information to indicate Dr Haneef had any involvement in, or foreknowledge of, the UK terror acts.
STEPHEN KEIM, SC, DR HANEEF’S BARRISTER: If ASIO, the most suspicious of organisations had come to the view by the July the 11th that there was nothing to be suspicious about with Dr Haneef ah then there was absolutely no basis for anyone to be suspicious about it.
(Re-enactment of meeting between prosecutor and AFP officers)
SALLY NEIGHBOUR: On Friday the 13th of July, a prosecutor from the DPP’s office was summoned to AFP headquarters in Brisbane to advise on charging Haneef.
He was given a 48-page briefing paper, plus police statements, charts and other records.
But crucial evidence of Haneef’s innocence was missing, an emailed letter in which the Glasgow bomber Kafeel Ahmed apologised to his brother Sabeel for not having told him of his plans.
STEPHEN KEIM, SC, DR HANEEF’S BARRISTER: If the document that completely exonerates Sabeel Ahmed wasn’t provided to the DPP, then the DPP wasn’t provided with the most relevant document because Dr Haneef is charged with providing a sim card 12 months before anything happened with about $40 credit on it to Sabeel Ahmed.
Sabeel Ahmed is completely innocent of anything to do with the terrorist attacks, so Dr Haneef’s giving the sim card to Sabeel, to Sabeel Ahmed, must be a completely innocent act, so that document was the most crucial bit of evidence that proved Dr Haneef was innocent.
SALLY NEIGHBOUR: Inside the AFP office the tension was rising. Unless Haneef was charged, he would be released the following day. The prosecutor said it was a hothouse atmosphere, in which he felt unspoken but extreme pressure from the police.
Mid-afternoon the prosecutor rang his boss, who advised him not to approve a charge against Haneef. According to the DPP’s submission the prosecutor misunderstood the instruction.
He later drafted the wording for a charge of providing resources to a terrorist organisation. He gave this to the police, but stressed that there were weaknesses in the case and deficiencies in evidence.
(Excerpt of Police recording of interview with Dr Haneef)
POLICE OFFICER: What we're your thoughts when you were told that your daughter was sick in hospital?
DR MOHAMMED HANEEF, FORMER TERRORIST SUSPECT: I was, um, worried about my daughter and I was thinking of going to India to visit them.
(End of Excerpt)
SALLY NEIGHBOUR: Late that day, the police sat Haneef down to interview him again. The questioning lasted 12 hours, from four in the afternoon till after four the next morning.
Page 13 of 16 EMMS - Transcript/Captions Details
(Excerpt continued)
POLICE OFFICER: So let me just clarify, your daughters in hospital, your wife's not in hospital?
DR MOHAMMED HANEEF, FORMER TERRORIST SUSPECT: My wife is there at the hospital as well,
(inaudible).
POLICE OFFICER: And who's (inaudible) get advice from?
DR MOHAMMED HANEEF, FORMER TERRORIST SUSPECT: My child.
POLICE OFFICER: Your child only.
(End of Excerpt)
PETER RUSSO, DR HANEEF’S SOLICITOR: They left me with the impression that they’d run out of questions, that they were really going over old ground, where I felt where they’d taken it as far as they could and there was nothing new in the material.
SALLY NEIGHBOUR: Afterwards, the Federal and Queensland police on the case held a final crucial meeting. According to the Queensland police submission, they discussed that Haneef’s explanations were plausible.
The Queensland officers stated that they believed there was insufficient evidence to charge. At this point the leader of the AFP team Ramzi Jabbour made a phone call to AFP senior management in Canberra.
He passed on the Queensland police view there was insufficient evidence.
He then put the phone down and announced that he was going to charge Haneef.
STEPHEN KEIM, SC, DR HANEEF’S BARRISTER: The inference that one is likely to draw is that Mr Jabbour was given very strong advice by somebody in Canberra, superior to him, so we don’t know whether it goes to the very top of the AFP or whether it, it’s, it’s ah Deputy Commissioner or whatever that it was appropriate for him to lay a charge despite everybody else having the view that there, there was insufficient evidence.
SALLY NEIGHBOUR: Four Corners has obtained a separate inside account of the investigation, which says this. The investigators doing the interview refused to charge Haneef, for lack of evidence, and as a result he was charged by the senior officer of the entire investigation.
It says this is a very strange occurrence, and notes the level of micro-management of the case was immoderate to say the least.
It concludes, the decision to charge was not supported by the many police dealing with the evidence.
JIM TORR, CEO, AUSTRALIAN FEDERAL POLICE ASSOCIATION: The actual arresting officers have come to feel to an extent as if they’re the face of all that’s wrong about Australia’s draconian terrorist laws and that they’ve gleefully and recklessly gone out and used powers that they shouldn’t have.
That’s not the case at all, that’s not the way it unfolded at all and that’s why we’re looking forward to Justice Clarke’s report.
(Excerpt of News footage of Dr Haneef emerging from custody)
SALLY NEIGHBOUR: When the case against Haneef collapsed two weeks later, the Director of Public
Page 14 of 16 EMMS - Transcript/Captions Details
Prosecutions was forthright about his office’s failings.
(End of Excerpt) - (Excerpt of News footage from 27 July 2007)
DAMIAN BUGG, DIRECTOR OF PUBLIC PROSECUTIONS: On my view of this matter a mistake has been made, I’ll now take further steps to enquire as to how that mistake occurred.
SALLY NEIGHBOUR: There has been no such admission from Commissioner Keelty.
MICK KEELTY, AFP COMMISSIONER: The police investigation has been thorough, I make no apology for that, nor should I in a terrorism investigation in this country. We have done our job well in this instance. We have done our job professionally.
(End of Excerpt)
SALLY NEIGHBOUR: For Gerry and Jenny Fletcher, the Haneef saga seemed like a case of déjà vu.
JENNY FLETCHER, GERRY FLETCHER’S WIFE: My personal opinion is that somewhere along the way someone failed to say stop. It’s where the position comes that everything that’s put in front of you says we have nothing, this man is innocent, someone failed to call a halt, and went down a road that was immoral and it was wrong.
SALLY NEIGHBOUR: It took the AFP another year, and more than $8-million, to decide that Haneef was no longer a suspect. Commissioner Keelty’s response to the furore, which was to call for a media blackout on terrorism cases, was the last straw for some critics.
PETER FARIS QC, FORMER CHAIR NATIONAL CRIME AUTHORITY: I think Keelty’s performance in the Haneef case was disgraceful and I think he was a significant component in it all going wrong.
SALLY NEIGHBOUR: Do you think his position is tenable?
PETER FARIS QC, FORMER CHAIR NATIONAL CRIME AUTHORITY: No, I don’t think his position is tenable. I think he’s had his run.
SALLY NEIGHBOUR: The Rudd Government has stated publicly that Commissioner Keelty still has its support. But privately the Government began casting about for a successor earlier this year, approaching at least two possible candidates for Keelty’s job. Ultimately though the issue is not the personality at the helm of the Australian Federal Police. It’s the performance of the organisation he leads.
JOHN BROOME, FORMER CHAIR NATIONAL CRIME AUTHORITY: This is an organisation whose budget’s grown from under 400-million six years ago to more than 1.7-billion in this current financial year.
That needs some kind of scrutiny as to whether it’s doing, what it’s doing well, could it do it better, is it well targeted? I don’t think you can leave those judgements alone to the organisations involved.
JENNY FLETCHER, GERRY FLETCHER’S WIFE: From my personal experience I’m very sorry to see the AFP be called into question the way it is because there’s so many good people, there really are.
SALLY NEIGHBOUR: What issues do need to be looked at do you believe?
JENNY FLETCHER, GERRY FLETCHER’S WIFE: The accountability and the independence and the integrity of investigations.
Sally Neighbour investigates what’s wrong inside Australia’s Federal Police.
Reporter: Sally Neighbour
(Excerpt of News footage of bombing at Sydney Hilton Hotel)
SALLY NEIGHBOUR: The Indian Prime Minister was among 13 Commonwealth heads of government staying at the hotel.
The bomb killed two garbage men and one policeman.
SALLY NEIGHBOUR: In the aftermath of Australia’s first terrorist bombing, at Sydney’s Hilton Hotel in the seventies, a brand new police force burst onto the scene.
(End of Excerpt)
(Excerpt from Four Corners Episode, 1979)
SALLY NEIGHBOUR: These police officers are members of the newly formed Australian Federal Police.
They’re part of a section of the force known as the Protective Service Unit.
AUSTRALIAN FEDERAL POLICE OFFICER: That was a good entry, only lost one. What did you do wrong?
SALLY NEIGHBOUR: They’re training to be Australia’s frontline troops in the war against international terrorism.
AUSTRALIAN FEDERAL POLICE OFFICER 2: You never know, that could happen any day.
(END OF EXCERPT)
SALLY NEIGHBOUR: The Australian Federal Police would become Australia’s premier police force.
But 29 years on, it’s them in the firing line.
In the wake of the Mohammed Haneef case, the AFP have found themselves derided as Keystone Cops, accused of incompetence, secrecy and playing politics.
WAYNE SIEVERS, FORMER AFP OFFICER: The pattern from the 1980s right through to Haneef is a culture of obsessive secrecy, the avoidance of accountability.
SALLY NEIGHBOUR: Commissioner Keelty, at one time lauded as a public hero, has even faced calls to resign.
PETER FARIS QC, FORMER CHAIR NATIONAL CRIME AUTHORITY: I think Keelty’s time is up and I think he should retire gracefully and if he doesn’t, um well then I think he should be sacked.
Page 1 of 16 EMMS - Transcript/Captions Details
SALLY NEIGHBOUR: Tonight on 4 Corners, we examine the AFP’s rise, and its fall from grace, and ask what went wrong? Was it simply one mishandled case? Or do the Federal Police have serious problems that need to be addressed?
(On Screen Text: Good Cop Bad Cop, Reporter: Sally Neighbour)
SALLY NEIGHBOUR: Created in 1979, the AFP was a merger of the former Commonwealth police and the ACT police in Canberra, with the Federal Narcotics Bureau thrown in. Behind the show of bravado, it was a painful birth.
(Excerpt of footage from Four Corners Episode 1979 - an AFP officer is seen breaking through a window)
RAY COOPER, FORMER AFP INTERNAL AFFAIRS: It was chaotic. The organisations, didn’t know each other, they didn’t like each other, they didn’t and they had no, no sort of will to co-operate with each other.
SALLY NEIGHBOUR: The new force also inspired bitter and enduring hostility among state police, who resented its greater powers such as phone-tapping, and its move into glamour crimes like terrorism, the drug trade and fraud.
MIKE KENNEDY, FORMER NSW DETECTIVE: Well their nickname back in those days was the Plastics. We referred to them as the Plastics because basically they were incompetent, they weren’t real police, they didn’t engage in community based policing.
Everything had to be the biggest and the best, and that brand name protection, that media and marketing aspect of their organisation, where it was about style and it was never about substance.
SALLY NEIGHBOUR: The AFP had its first brush with scandal when major corruption was uncovered inside the Sydney office that housed the Federal Police Drug Unit in the late 1980s.
It’s an episode that still rankles with some of those involved, who say it set the pattern for much that has followed. Wayne Sievers was a member of the unit at the time.
WAYNE SIEVERS, FORMER AFP OFFICER: You had theft of drugs, you had people running with criminals, you had prosecutions that were compromised. You had a range of corrupt activities.
SALLY NEIGHBOUR: Superintendent Ray Cooper, now retired, was a commander in AFP Internal Investigations. He began an inquiry, only to have it shut down and handed over to the Sydney office, where corruption was endemic.
RAY COOPER, FORMER AFP INTERNAL AFFAIRS: I believe that the, that that purpose of, or one of the purposes of that group was to, was to get these, to discredit the informants and, and cover up the AFP’s activities in Sydney.
SALLY NEIGHBOUR: And was that the AFP’s agenda as you saw it?
RAY COOPER, FORMER AFP INTERNAL AFFAIRS: Well I was told I was told by the Commissioner and others that you know, don’t, don’t make any trouble in Sydney because Sydney Drug Unit is the only Drug
Unit that is effective, don’t make any trouble in Sydney. We, we don’t want to make any trouble in Sydney.
SALLY NEIGHBOUR: The rot was left to fester until it erupted publicly several years later during the Wood Royal Commission into the NSW Police.
(Excerpt of News footage)
SALLY NEIGHBOUR: The most recent allegations of systemic corruption came from former federal
Page 2 of 16 EMMS - Transcript/Captions Details detective Alan Taciak who claims a long standing cell of corrupt Federal Detectives has been ignored.
(End of Excerpt)
SALLY NEIGHBOUR: A separate inquiry was ordered into the AFP by a new Federal Government eager to squelch the scandal. It was conducted in private, its report never released.
RAY COOPER, FORMER AFP INTERNAL AFFAIRS: I thought it was wrong, very wrong. I don’t think the AFP can hold its head up about how it, how it can handle its own, well in those days how it can handle its own problems. Ah covering it up is in my view is not the answer.
(Excerpt of footage from December 1996)
MICK KEELTY, AFP COMMISSIONER: And hopefully that will lead to higher profile targeting -
SALLY NEIGHBOUR: The officer in charge of implementing the inquiry’s findings was Assistant Commissioner, Mick Keelty, the rising star of the force. Keelty also won Government plaudits for carriage of the much-vaunted war on drugs. A graduate of the FBI training academy, he was one of a new breed of politically savvy professionals moving up the ranks.
(End of Excerpt)
WAYNE SIEVERS, FORMER AFP OFFICER: He was part of group of people who I’d characterise who came up from Canberra, who, who were keen to reinvent themselves as anti-corruption busters if you like. They were smooth, they were slick, they were polished and they were extremely ambitious people and they were prepared to form the necessary relationships with politicians to get on in this world.
(Excerpt of News footage of Commissioner Keelty being sworn in as Commissioner)
MICK KEELTY, AFP COMMISSIONER: I, Michael Joseph Keelty, do swear that I will be faithful and be a true -
SALLY NEIGHBOUR: Mick Keelty was promoted to Commissioner in 2001. He had cemented his
reputation as a skilled investigator, a decent bloke and a canny political operator.
(End of Excerpt)
ARTHUR SINODINOS, FORMER PM JOHN HOWARD’S CHIEF OF STAFF: I think from day one he was conscious that he needed to make sure he looked after the various stakeholders that were relevant to the AFP. And the Prime Minister, the Prime Minister’s Office were important stakeholders from his point of view.
(Excerpt of footage of September 11 terrorist attacks in New York)
SALLY NEIGHBOUR: Keelty had been in the job only five months when the September 11 attacks on America took place, followed a year later by the Bali bombings.
(End of Excerpt) - (Excerpt of footage of Bali bombings aftermath)
(End of Excerpt)
DAVID BILES, FORMER CHAIRMAN, ACT POLICE CONSULTATIVE BOARD: It’s a terrible thing to say but the Bali bombing occurred and that was a blessing for the AFP in that they were able to act quickly and professionally and everyone admired the way they responded to that terrible event. Ah they’re probably one of the worst terrorism events that have impacted on Australia. So within about 27, 28 years the AFP moved from being an object of derision to an object of admiration.
Page 3 of 16 EMMS - Transcript/Captions Details
(Excerpt of footage of Commissioner Keelty in Indonesia)
SALLY NEIGHBOUR: The AFP’s work in Indonesia won universal praise. Most of the bombers were soon caught, and a string of further attacks was just as quickly solved. Commissioner Keelty was feted around the world, while a grateful nation rewarded the force with virtually whatever it wanted.
(End of Excerpt)
WAYNE SIEVERS, FORMER AFP OFFICER: The AFP was able to reposition itself as the premier intelligence fighting agency and that meant massive injections of money, capital, and a very close relationship with the Government.
SALLY NEIGHBOUR: In the years since September 11, under the banner of the war on terror, the AFP has undergone enormous growth. Its staff numbers have more than doubled while its budget has quadrupled to almost $1.8-billion a year.
It now operates in 33 countries, and spends the bulk of its budget on national security and overseas deployments.
JOHN BROOME, FORMER CHAIR NATIONAL CRIME AUTHORITY: The question I ask is whether we’ve done this at the expense of the AFP’s core budget, whether they’ve taken their eyes off major issues such as drug trafficking, financial crime, issues such as child sex tourism, these kinds of issues which the AFP saw as its main work four or five years ago and which apparently now is not its core business.
SALLY NEIGHBOUR: Former chairman of the National Crime Authority, John Broome, says the shift is reflected in a dramatic drop in the number of criminals charged by the AFP. Cases sent to the DPP for prosecution have fallen by half, from more than a thousand to around 500 a year. And despite the AFP’s massive expansion, John Broome says there’s been a fall in its expertise.
JOHN BROOME, FORMER CHAIR NATIONAL CRIME AUTHORITY: We’ve seen both a growth in the number of AFP personnel with less than five years experience, and a reduction, at least in percentage terms, of those with say more than 15 years of experience. So we’ve lost some of the old heads, the wise heads, and we’ve seen them replaced with large numbers of relatively untried people.
(Excerpt of footage of Wayne Sievers campaigning)
SALLY NEIGHBOUR: AFP veteran Wayne Sievers left the force eight years ago to pursue a career in politics.
WAYNE SIEVERS, FORMER AFP OFFICER: Good evening, and thank you all very much for coming here tonight, I'll just slip my glasses -
SALLY NEIGHBOUR: He’s now an outspoken critic of the Federal Police.
WAYNE SIEVERS, FORMER AFP OFFICER: Put simply, the lives of ordinary Australians are adversely affected, sometimes quite profoundly, when the powerful and the arrogant are unaccountable. The Australian Federal Police is one case in point.
(End of Excerpt) - (Excerpt of footage of conflict in East Timor)
SALLY NEIGHBOUR: Back in 1999, Sievers was in East Timor serving with the United Nations, when he received intelligence that military-backed militias opposed to independence were planning a massacre. The warnings were ignored by Australian authorities, and a bloodbath ensued.
Sievers and his AFP colleagues earned a group citation for bravery during the turmoil.
WAYNE SIEVERS, FORMER AFP OFFICER: We're here to do our job and we'll carry on.
SALLY NEIGHBOUR: He later went public to criticise the authorities for failing to stop the slaughter. As a result, he was targeted for investigation for unlawful disclosure of Commonwealth information, causing him to resign in 2000.
(End of Excerpt)
WAYNE SIEVERS, FORMER AFP OFFICER: I understood then that our organisation was well and truly on the road to being political, that it was not giving the fearless and frank advice, that’s it was working in effect to look after the Government’s image.
SALLY NEIGHBOUR: Wayne Sievers is not alone in holding this view. It’s a concern that’s shared by many working police.
JIM TORR, CEO, AUSTRALIAN FEDERAL POLICE ASSOCIATION: There is a concern that the broader public perceive the AFP to have been manipulated, that some in the broader public perceive that. That is a concern to us because everything we do, the most important thing to us is the trust of the public.
(Excerpt of footage of Madrid train bombings, March 2004)
SALLY NEIGHBOUR: Since the advent of the war on terror, policing has become highly politically charged. This was starkly illustrated in the wake of the al Qaeda train bombings in Madrid in March 2004.
(End of Excerpt)
(On Screen Text: Sunday 14 March 2004)
MICK KEELTY, AFP COMMISSIONER: If this turns out to be Islamic extremists responsible for this bombing in Spain, it’s more likely to be linked to the position that Spain and other allies took on issues such as Iraq.
(End of Excerpt)
SALLY NEIGHBOUR: This seemingly simple observation by Commissioner Keelty provoked a political storm, because it was at odds with the Government's view and implied that Australia too could become a target because of its support for the war in Iraq.
ARTHUR SINODINOS, FORMER PM JOHN HOWARD’S CHIEF OF STAFF: I’d seen the interview ah and I rang the, the Prime Minister about it because I said I think this is going to cause us a problem. I spoke to the PM about that. And he said ‘Well ring Mick and let him know that I’m very concerned about this because ah you know, the way it could be interpreted, etcetera’.
SALLY NEIGHBOUR: Keelty came under withering attack, including this from the then Foreign Minister Alexander Downer.
(On Screen Text: 16 March 2004)
ALEXANDER DOWNER, FORMER FOREIGN AFFAIRS MINISTER: He is just expressing a view which reflects a lot of the propaganda we’re getting from al Qaeda.
SALLY NEIGHBOUR: After two days of it, both Keelty and the Government had had enough.
(Excerpt of footage of John Howard speaking on radio, vision of The Australia Newspaper, headline "PM sought Keelty Backdown")
Page 5 of 16 EMMS - Transcript/Captions Details
(End of Excerpt)
ARTHUR SINODINOS, FORMER PM JOHN HOWARD’S CHIEF OF STAFF: Well it had been agreed on the Sunday that if things got to a point where they needed to be clarified well there’d have to be some form of clarification.
SALLY NEIGHBOUR: Keelty’s statement of clarification said he’d been taken out of context, and echoed the Government’s line that terrorism seeks to attack our liberal democratic values, no matter what our involvement in East Timor, Afghanistan or Iraq.
The Government was clearly pleased.
(Excerpt of News footage from 19 March 2004)
SALLY NEIGHBOUR: Can you shake hands?
JOHN HOWARD, FORMER PRIME MINISTER: We did that downstairs, but I'm delighted to do it again. (Laughs) I have total confidence in the Federal Police Commissioner. I think he’s doing an excellent job.
(End of Excerpt) - (Excerpt of footage from ABCs Lateline)
ALEXANDER DOWNER, FORMER FOREIGN AFFAIRS MINISTER: He is an outstanding Australian. He’ll go down in history as one of the great police commissioners.
(End of Excerpt)
JIM TORR, CEO, AUSTRALIAN FEDERAL POLICE ASSOCIATION: Some could argue there was an opportunity lost for the AFP to make a bigger point.
SALLY NEIGHBOUR: So you think the Commissioner was seen to buckle too easily?
JIM TORR, CEO, AUSTRALIAN FEDERAL POLICE ASSOCIATION: I think some took that view and I believe some of our members took that view.
SALLY NEIGHBOUR (to Arthur Sinodinos): So are you saying in effect it’s their job to do the bidding of the Government?
ARTHUR SINODINOS, FORMER PM JOHN HOWARD’S CHIEF OF STAFF: Um their job is to work within the framework of, of policy subject of course to not breaking the law.
SALLY NEIGHBOUR: So is it their job to do the bidding of Government as long as it’s legal?
ARTHUR SINODINOS, FORMER PM JOHN HOWARD’S CHIEF OF STAFF: Ah in my view it is. SALLY NEIGHBOUR (to Jim Torr): How do police feel about being seen to be used for a political agenda?
JIM TORR, CEO, AUSTRALIAN FEDERAL POLICE ASSOCIATION: It’s probably the greatest insult you could give a constable, and to, as an organisation, to be accused of doing a Government’s bidding is an insult to an entire organisation.
SALLY NEIGHBOUR: Commissioner Keelty declined repeated requests by Four Corners to discuss the issues raised in this program . The AFP is quick to reject any criticism, and employs a large media management team to promote its successes.
Page 6 of 16 EMMS - Transcript/Captions Details
WAYNE SIEVERS, FORMER AFP OFFICER: The AFP’s management of the media is very good. It seems to me that um, whenever there’s a bad story about to happen, suddenly there’s a drug bust or a paedophile bust or something like that happens on the day or very approximate to the bad news that’s coming out and it drowns out the bad news.
A recent case was the seizure of more than five tonnes of ecstasy, trumpeted by the AFP in August as the world’s biggest bust.
(Excerpt of News footage of drug bust)
MICK KEELTY, AFP COMMISSIONER: There was a period of time where we got excited about 10 kilos, and now we're talking about tonnage.
(End of Excerpt)
SALLY NEIGHBOUR: Selected reporters were tipped off about the raids in advance and the AFP released its own footage of federal agents in action.
(Excerpt of footage of AFP officers in action)
But behind the scenes was a very different story. Victorian detectives who’d worked on the case were so furious at what they saw as the AFP’s grandstanding, that one of them fired off an internal grievance report to set the record straight.
(Excerpt from Internal Grievance Report)
According to this account, the seizure was the work of VicPol, the Australian Crime Commission and Customs, with virtually no help from the AFP.
It says the Federal Police failed to honour an assurance of providing intelligence, refused to form a joint taskforce, and initially said they could not assist.
By this account, it was only after the massive stash was found that the AFP demanded control of the investigation, in a deliberate strategy to manipulate the situation, to falsely claim full credit by the AFP.
(End of Excerpt)
PETER FARIS QC, FORMER CHAIR NATIONAL CRIME AUTHORITY: We do have a poisonous relationship between the AFP and the state forces because of this competition for publicity and credit for their work, and of course the only people who suffer from that are the public.
SALLY NEIGHBOUR: Within the AFP’s own ranks, there are loyal and long-serving insiders who’ve grown deeply disillusioned with how the force operates.
Gerry Fletcher is a serving AFP officer who’s been 33 years in the job. He holds a masters degree in prevention of transnational crime and is recognised internationally as an organised crime expert. In 2004 he was awarded the Australia Day Medallion for his loyalty and dedication.
GERRY FLETCHER, DETECTIVE-SERGEANT, AFP: It’s been my life. It’s been work that you can go and do and you feel you’re achieving or you have achieved.
SALLY NEIGHBOUR: But it all came crashing down one day in May 2005.
JENNY FLETCHER, GERRY FLETCHER’S WIFE: Gerry rang me at work on the Friday, late Friday afternoon. He said ‘I’ve been suspended from the AFP’. He was in shock.
SALLY NEIGHBOUR: And what was your reaction?
Page 7 of 16 EMMS - Transcript/Captions Details
JENNY FLETCHER, GERRY FLETCHER’S WIFE: I said you’ve got to be kidding me. You’ve been with the AFP 30 years. You’ve got to be kidding me.
SALLY NEIGHBOUR: Six weeks earlier Fletcher had had a meeting in a coffee shop with a well-known drug dealer who was under investigation by the AFP. Fletcher had previously been counselled about meeting informers alone, and had been told not to meet this particular criminal. He reported the meeting afterwards to his superiors, as per AFP rules.
But when the drug-dealer disappeared a month later, causing the collapse of the investigation, Fletcher was accused of tipping off the target. The accusation was false. It was made directly to Commissioner Keelty by NSW Crime Commission officer Mark Standen , who has since been arrested and charged with being part of a drug importation conspiracy.
JENNY FLETCHER, GERRY FLETCHER’S WIFE: There was a false allegation made against Gerry, his integrity was questioned after 30 years, his reputation was trashed.
SALLY NEIGHBOUR: An internal inquiry found Fletcher had not released any information or engaged in corrupt behaviour. But the AFP sacked him anyway, claiming his meeting with the drug dealer brought discredit on the Federal Police.
GERRY FLETCHER, DETECTIVE-SERGEANT, AFP: I just couldn’t get over that, after 32 years, to me it felt like it was, it was a, a frame up, that there was a preconceived outcome before the investigation started.
SALLY NEIGHBOUR: Fletcher’s dismissal was overturned by the Industrial Relations Commission which found it was harsh and not done for a valid reason. The AFP gave him a job back, answering phones.
GERRY FLETCHER, DETECTIVE-SERGEANT, AFP: To me every investigation has to have integrity. Every investigation has to be accountable and transparent. Now with the Australian Government giving a section of money and amounts of money I should say, to the AFP to maintain integrity, it’s that is so that integrity cannot be interfered with or moulded to what they want.
My case shows I would suggest that they’re not getting their value for their money.
SALLY NEIGHBOUR: He may well be risking his job again by speaking out.
RAY COOPER, FORMER AFP INTERNAL AFFAIRS: They won’t like it. They don’t like anyone talking to the, to the media, they don’t like anyone airing anything in public. They ah, they have their secret society and if you speak out then, then they castigate you.
JENNY FLETCHER, GERRY FLETCHER’S WIFE: I believe that there were many senior people who believed that Gerry was the subject of a witch-hunt, but no one had the avenue to actually be able to go and say this is wrong, because if you put your head up you’re going to be in the same position as Gerry. Because you have a culture, headed by a Commissioner who doesn’t like to be told he’s wrong.
SALLY NEIGHBOUR: Mick Keelty’s style of leadership is the subject of growing debate within and outside the AFP. Keelty’s admirers describe a dedicated workaholic, hands-on to a fault, who inspires intense loyalty, and has built the AFP into a force to be reckoned with.
ARTHUR SINODINOS, FORMER PM JOHN HOWARD’S CHIEF OF STAFF: He’s probably been the Police Commissioner who’s been under the most intense pressure and media scrutiny of any
Commissioner.
RAY COOPER, FORMER AFP INTERNAL AFFAIRS: Even with some of the issues that we’ve identified
Page 8 of 16 EMMS - Transcript/Captions Details today, he’s been in my view the best Commissioner the AFP’s had.
SALLY NEIGHBOUR: Keelty’s detractors talk of a presidential-style leader, who won’t tolerate dissent and shuns advice contrary to his own views.
WAYNE SIEVERS, FORMER AFP OFFICER: The AFP is essentially run by an all-powerful CEO. There is no understanding of somebody who raises a loyal voice in opposition or disputes a decision. It is essentially an authoritarian organisation and anyone who’s seen to question the current line that comes from the leader’s office if you like, and I might even describe it as a cult of personality, very soon finds themself on the outer.
And there are a number of very talented, very good people that I know of in recent years or over the years that have left the AFP because they’ve dared to voice a dissenting opinion.
SALLY NEIGHBOUR: The job of policing the AFP falls to the Commonwealth Ombudsman and the Commission for Law Enforcement Integrity, a new agency with a modest budget and only 12 staff. Ombudsman John McMillan says it’s not an easy task.
JOHN MCMILLAN, COMMONWEALTH OMBUDSMAN: I have a very professional relationship with the Australian Federal Police but I do find it more of a challenge than I find it with other Commonwealth agencies. Ah my office is more likely to be told, including from senior levels, that we’re wasting the time of police and that we’re dwelling on trivialities.
SALLY NEIGHBOUR: In his latest report, the Ombudsman describes one instance where an AFP agent began a sexual relationship with a female informant, and another where a number of police being posted overseas swore false statutory declarations to support each others’ passport applications.
In both cases, the AFP was unwilling to admit its members had done anything wrong.
JOHN MCMILLAN, COMMONWEALTH OMBUDSMAN: And our view very strongly was that it was inappropriate. If police are required to uphold the law, they need to uphold it individually and collectively in all instances. As an old adage, a true one, that those who bend the rules end up breaking them and so it is very important to take a stern line at any inappropriate behaviour by those who have the responsibility of enforcing the law.
SALLY NEIGHBOUR: The most intense scrutiny of the AFP’s performance has been prompted by its role in implementing Australia’s new counter-terrorism laws.
Since September 11, no fewer than 44 new anti-terror laws have been passed.
Commissioner Keelty has been a vocal advocate of the new laws.
(Excerpt of News footage)
MICK KEELTY, AFP COMMISSIONER: We obviously support the new legislation being passed -
(End of Excerpt)
SALLY NEIGHBOUR: There’s been markedly less enthusiasm on the part of working police.
JIM TORR, CEO, AUSTRALIAN FEDERAL POLICE ASSOCIATION: The laws are alien to decades, indeed you know, 100 years of policing experience; they’re alien to the office of constable. They are complex, procedurally very complex laws. You add enough procedures or complexity into a process and the likelihood of a technical error increases.
SALLY NEIGHBOUR: AFP management has been eager to use the new laws. In one case an officer
Page 9 of 16 EMMS - Transcript/Captions Details testified that police were directed to lay as many charges under the new legislation against as many suspects as possible to test the laws.
JOHN BROOME, FORMER CHAIR NATIONAL CRIME AUTHORITY: I think that the AFP’s been under very substantial pressure. It’s been under pressure to produce results and by that most people mean arrests and charges.
WAYNE SIEVERS, FORMER AFP OFFICER: I think when you have to rely on extraordinary powers and at the same time you see a loss of skilled investigation capacity from the organisation, frequently as morale plummets, the reliance on extraordinary powers can sometimes make for a lazy investigator.
SALLY NEIGHBOUR: Australia’s biggest terrorism trial ended last month in Melbourne with mixed results, seven men convicted, another four acquitted and one to face a re-trial.
(Excerpt of News footage)
UNIDENTIFIED LAWYER: It's wonderful to live in a democracy where a jury obviously pays this level of attention, to matters like this and worked this hard.
(End of Excerpt)
SALLY NEIGHBOUR: The convictions were an important win for the police after a series of failed prosecutions, like the case of Sydney medical student Izhar Ul-Haque.
His charges of doing terrorist training were dismissed when Justice Adams ruled that he had been kidnapped and falsely imprisoned by ASIO agents, and subjected to oppressive conduct by Federal Police.
(Excerpt of News footage, after Izhar Ul-Haque's trial)
ADAM HOUDA, IZHAR UL-HAQUE'S LAWYER: This has been a moronic prosecution right from the start. The terror laws were introduced supposedly to capture terrorists, not brilliant young men like Izhar Ul-Haque.
From the beginning this was no more than a political show trial, designed to justify the billions of dollars spent on, on counter-terrorism.
(End of Excerpt)
SALLY NEIGHBOUR: After the collapse of the Ul-Haque case, Commissioner Keelty ordered an inquiry presided over by retired NSW Chief Justice, Sir Laurence Street, who now works as a professional mediator.
(To Sir Laurence Street) What was Commissioner Keelty’s brief to you when he set up your inquiry?
SIR LAURENCE STREET, FORMER NSW CHIEF JUSTICE: Well it’s in his terms of reference. The terms of reference are there in the report but it certainly didn’t include and ah this was made, I made this very clear at the outset we were not investigating Ul-Haque.
SALLY NEIGHBOUR: The report highlighted inadequate information sharing and trust issues between ASIO and the AFP, along with a range of operational flaws. But it did not address the most disturbing issues raised by the case.
(To Sir Laurence Street) Did you examine the gross breach of powers that Justice Adams referred to?
SIR LAURENCE STREET, FORMER NSW CHIEF JUSTICE: No. No.
SALLY NEIGHBOUR: What about the false imprisonment and kidnapping?
Page 10 of 16 EMMS - Transcript/Captions Details
SIR LAURENCE STREET, FORMER NSW CHIEF JUSTICE: No. No.
SALLY NEIGHBOUR: Did you examine the oppressive conduct of the AFP?
SIR LAURENCE STREET, FORMER NSW CHIEF JUSTICE: No.
SALLY NEIGHBOUR: Or the fact that ah, that one of its officers gave untruthful evidence?
SIR LAURENCE STREET, FORMER NSW CHIEF JUSTICE: Well now you’re putting adjectives on them. Ah when I saw, no, I'm not embracing those adjectives.
SALLY NEIGHBOUR: No, oh well those were Justice Adams’ words that I’m quoting.
SIR LAURENCE STREET, FORMER NSW CHIEF JUSTICE: Well I still don’t embrace those adjectives.
SALLY NEIGHBOUR: So none of those issues was within your terms of reference?
SIR LAURENCE STREET, FORMER NSW CHIEF JUSTICE: No.
SALLY NEIGHBOUR: Why do you think the AFP didn’t ask you to investigate those matters?
SIR LAURENCE STREET, FORMER NSW CHIEF JUSTICE: Probably because Commissioner Keelty knew my philosophy and that I would not be prepared to undertake an inquiry to attribute blame and who’s right and who’s wrong.
SALLY NEIGHBOUR: Do you think that’s why he chose you?
SIR LAURENCE STREET, FORMER NSW CHIEF JUSTICE: Oh I have no idea, I have no idea. I would, I had some judicial experience and that was important.
SALLY NEIGHBOUR: Of all the terrorism cases, the spotlight has focused most intensely on Dr Mohammed Haneef.
HON SIR GERARD BRENNAN: Well the state has the right to employ to the full, it's arsenal of legal weapons to repress and prevent terrorist activities, it may not use indiscriminate measures which would only undermine the fundamental values they seek to protect.
SALLY NEIGHBOUR: The Haneef case is currently the subject of an inquiry by former NSW Judge John Clarke QC. A disturbing picture is emerging of how the case went so badly wrong.
Haneef’s saga began on the 30th of June last year, when a jeep driven by his second cousin Kafeel Ahmad exploded in flames at Glasgow airport.
Two days later Dr Haneef was arrested at Brisbane airport, where he was waiting to board a plane to India.
Four Corners has obtained the audio recording of Haneef’s interviews with the Federal and Queensland
Police, starting at Brisbane airport.
(Excerpt of audio from police interview 2nd July 2007)
POLICE OFFICER: Do you agree that I told you that you are under arrest for assisting a terrorist organisation or supporting a terrorist organisation?
DR MOHAMMED HANEEF, FORMER TERRORIST SUSPECT: I really don’t, I haven’t supported any organisation.
POLICE OFFICER: I'm just asking you, do you agree that that's what I said to you, when I placed you under arrest.
DR MOHAMMED HANEEF, FORMER TERRORIST SUSPECT: I don't really understand what, what you
Page 11 of 16 EMMS - Transcript/Captions Details mean, I haven't supported any of the terrorist organisations, or anything.
POLICE OFFICER: Okay, we're going to want to ask you a lot of questions okay?
DR MOHAMMED HANEEF, FORMER TERRORIST SUSPECT: Sure sir.
POLICE OFFICER: Probably not quite now, what we initially want to do is conduct a search of you.
DR MOHAMMED HANEEF, FORMER TERRORIST SUSPECT: Sure.
POLICE OFFICER: And also your luggage here.
DR MOHAMMED HANEEF, FORMER TERRORIST SUSPECT: Sure.
(End of Excerpt)
SALLY NEIGHBOUR: The Law Council of Australia says Haneef should never have been detained in the first place.
ROSS RAY QC, PRESIDENT, LAW COUNCIL OF AUSTRALIA: There is no common law power to arrest someone and detain them while you carry out an investigation. You must have that reasonable belief that an offence has been committed.
SALLY NEIGHBOUR: So on the information publicly available, was his arrest unlawful?
ROSS RAY QC, PRESIDENT, LAW COUNCIL OF AUSTRALIA: Ah, yes, it was certainly not justified.
SALLY NEIGHBOUR: Within hours of Haneef’s arrest the politicians had seized on it.
(Excerpt of News footage from 3 July 2007)
JOHN HOWARD, FORMER PRIME MINISTER: I just wanted to make a couple of brief comments about the taking into custody of a man at Brisbane airport last night, the Attorney General and the Federal Police Commissioner have already briefed the media and the Australian public on this issue.
SALLY NEIGHBOUR: The running commentary continued as Haneef’s detention was extended day after day, under the unique provisions of the terrorism laws.
JOHN HOWARD, FORMER PRIME MINISTER: There are people within our midst who would do us harm and evil if they had the opportunity of doing so.
(End of Excerpt) - (Excerpt of News footage from 6 July 2007)
MICK KEELTY, AFP COMMISSIONER: It is quite a complex investigation and the links to the UK are becoming more concrete.
(End of Excerpt)
SALLY NEIGHBOUR: The media and political frenzy only heightened the pressure on the police who were actually working on the case.
JIM TORR, CEO, AUSTRALIAN FEDERAL POLICE ASSOCIATION: It was an incredibly gruelling and intense period. One of them, had 40 hours without sleep, one of our members, such is the chain of the unbroken interviews and while Mr. Haneef’s resting, they’re still gathering material to prepare.
(Re-enactment of Police interview with Dr Haneef)
SALLY NEIGHBOUR: As the investigation entered its second week in July last year, it became steadily
Page 12 of 16 EMMS - Transcript/Captions Details clearer the evidence wasn’t stacking up.
On about July 10th, a senior AFP officer wrote to his superiors, that having reviewed the material in possession of the investigation team, he did not believe there was sufficient evidence to charge Haneef. On July 12th, Commissioner Keelty had a private phone conversation with the Commonwealth DPP, who
was waiting for a plane at Melbourne airport. Keelty said he didn’t think there was a case against Haneef.
The same day, the Immigration Department noted, preliminary advice from the AFP is that there is insufficient evidence to support a criminal charge.
ASIO had already advised that it did not have information to indicate Dr Haneef had any involvement in, or foreknowledge of, the UK terror acts.
STEPHEN KEIM, SC, DR HANEEF’S BARRISTER: If ASIO, the most suspicious of organisations had come to the view by the July the 11th that there was nothing to be suspicious about with Dr Haneef ah then there was absolutely no basis for anyone to be suspicious about it.
(Re-enactment of meeting between prosecutor and AFP officers)
SALLY NEIGHBOUR: On Friday the 13th of July, a prosecutor from the DPP’s office was summoned to AFP headquarters in Brisbane to advise on charging Haneef.
He was given a 48-page briefing paper, plus police statements, charts and other records.
But crucial evidence of Haneef’s innocence was missing, an emailed letter in which the Glasgow bomber Kafeel Ahmed apologised to his brother Sabeel for not having told him of his plans.
STEPHEN KEIM, SC, DR HANEEF’S BARRISTER: If the document that completely exonerates Sabeel Ahmed wasn’t provided to the DPP, then the DPP wasn’t provided with the most relevant document because Dr Haneef is charged with providing a sim card 12 months before anything happened with about $40 credit on it to Sabeel Ahmed.
Sabeel Ahmed is completely innocent of anything to do with the terrorist attacks, so Dr Haneef’s giving the sim card to Sabeel, to Sabeel Ahmed, must be a completely innocent act, so that document was the most crucial bit of evidence that proved Dr Haneef was innocent.
SALLY NEIGHBOUR: Inside the AFP office the tension was rising. Unless Haneef was charged, he would be released the following day. The prosecutor said it was a hothouse atmosphere, in which he felt unspoken but extreme pressure from the police.
Mid-afternoon the prosecutor rang his boss, who advised him not to approve a charge against Haneef. According to the DPP’s submission the prosecutor misunderstood the instruction.
He later drafted the wording for a charge of providing resources to a terrorist organisation. He gave this to the police, but stressed that there were weaknesses in the case and deficiencies in evidence.
(Excerpt of Police recording of interview with Dr Haneef)
POLICE OFFICER: What we're your thoughts when you were told that your daughter was sick in hospital?
DR MOHAMMED HANEEF, FORMER TERRORIST SUSPECT: I was, um, worried about my daughter and I was thinking of going to India to visit them.
(End of Excerpt)
SALLY NEIGHBOUR: Late that day, the police sat Haneef down to interview him again. The questioning lasted 12 hours, from four in the afternoon till after four the next morning.
Page 13 of 16 EMMS - Transcript/Captions Details
(Excerpt continued)
POLICE OFFICER: So let me just clarify, your daughters in hospital, your wife's not in hospital?
DR MOHAMMED HANEEF, FORMER TERRORIST SUSPECT: My wife is there at the hospital as well,
(inaudible).
POLICE OFFICER: And who's (inaudible) get advice from?
DR MOHAMMED HANEEF, FORMER TERRORIST SUSPECT: My child.
POLICE OFFICER: Your child only.
(End of Excerpt)
PETER RUSSO, DR HANEEF’S SOLICITOR: They left me with the impression that they’d run out of questions, that they were really going over old ground, where I felt where they’d taken it as far as they could and there was nothing new in the material.
SALLY NEIGHBOUR: Afterwards, the Federal and Queensland police on the case held a final crucial meeting. According to the Queensland police submission, they discussed that Haneef’s explanations were plausible.
The Queensland officers stated that they believed there was insufficient evidence to charge. At this point the leader of the AFP team Ramzi Jabbour made a phone call to AFP senior management in Canberra.
He passed on the Queensland police view there was insufficient evidence.
He then put the phone down and announced that he was going to charge Haneef.
STEPHEN KEIM, SC, DR HANEEF’S BARRISTER: The inference that one is likely to draw is that Mr Jabbour was given very strong advice by somebody in Canberra, superior to him, so we don’t know whether it goes to the very top of the AFP or whether it, it’s, it’s ah Deputy Commissioner or whatever that it was appropriate for him to lay a charge despite everybody else having the view that there, there was insufficient evidence.
SALLY NEIGHBOUR: Four Corners has obtained a separate inside account of the investigation, which says this. The investigators doing the interview refused to charge Haneef, for lack of evidence, and as a result he was charged by the senior officer of the entire investigation.
It says this is a very strange occurrence, and notes the level of micro-management of the case was immoderate to say the least.
It concludes, the decision to charge was not supported by the many police dealing with the evidence.
JIM TORR, CEO, AUSTRALIAN FEDERAL POLICE ASSOCIATION: The actual arresting officers have come to feel to an extent as if they’re the face of all that’s wrong about Australia’s draconian terrorist laws and that they’ve gleefully and recklessly gone out and used powers that they shouldn’t have.
That’s not the case at all, that’s not the way it unfolded at all and that’s why we’re looking forward to Justice Clarke’s report.
(Excerpt of News footage of Dr Haneef emerging from custody)
SALLY NEIGHBOUR: When the case against Haneef collapsed two weeks later, the Director of Public
Page 14 of 16 EMMS - Transcript/Captions Details
Prosecutions was forthright about his office’s failings.
(End of Excerpt) - (Excerpt of News footage from 27 July 2007)
DAMIAN BUGG, DIRECTOR OF PUBLIC PROSECUTIONS: On my view of this matter a mistake has been made, I’ll now take further steps to enquire as to how that mistake occurred.
SALLY NEIGHBOUR: There has been no such admission from Commissioner Keelty.
MICK KEELTY, AFP COMMISSIONER: The police investigation has been thorough, I make no apology for that, nor should I in a terrorism investigation in this country. We have done our job well in this instance. We have done our job professionally.
(End of Excerpt)
SALLY NEIGHBOUR: For Gerry and Jenny Fletcher, the Haneef saga seemed like a case of déjà vu.
JENNY FLETCHER, GERRY FLETCHER’S WIFE: My personal opinion is that somewhere along the way someone failed to say stop. It’s where the position comes that everything that’s put in front of you says we have nothing, this man is innocent, someone failed to call a halt, and went down a road that was immoral and it was wrong.
SALLY NEIGHBOUR: It took the AFP another year, and more than $8-million, to decide that Haneef was no longer a suspect. Commissioner Keelty’s response to the furore, which was to call for a media blackout on terrorism cases, was the last straw for some critics.
PETER FARIS QC, FORMER CHAIR NATIONAL CRIME AUTHORITY: I think Keelty’s performance in the Haneef case was disgraceful and I think he was a significant component in it all going wrong.
SALLY NEIGHBOUR: Do you think his position is tenable?
PETER FARIS QC, FORMER CHAIR NATIONAL CRIME AUTHORITY: No, I don’t think his position is tenable. I think he’s had his run.
SALLY NEIGHBOUR: The Rudd Government has stated publicly that Commissioner Keelty still has its support. But privately the Government began casting about for a successor earlier this year, approaching at least two possible candidates for Keelty’s job. Ultimately though the issue is not the personality at the helm of the Australian Federal Police. It’s the performance of the organisation he leads.
JOHN BROOME, FORMER CHAIR NATIONAL CRIME AUTHORITY: This is an organisation whose budget’s grown from under 400-million six years ago to more than 1.7-billion in this current financial year.
That needs some kind of scrutiny as to whether it’s doing, what it’s doing well, could it do it better, is it well targeted? I don’t think you can leave those judgements alone to the organisations involved.
JENNY FLETCHER, GERRY FLETCHER’S WIFE: From my personal experience I’m very sorry to see the AFP be called into question the way it is because there’s so many good people, there really are.
SALLY NEIGHBOUR: What issues do need to be looked at do you believe?
JENNY FLETCHER, GERRY FLETCHER’S WIFE: The accountability and the independence and the integrity of investigations.
Friday, September 26, 2008
Additional Information - File 2 - Adam Keith Watt & Radislov Spadina
"The Border Mail" LES KENNEDY 26 Sep, 2008 12:00 AM
A DUTCH organised crime syndicate that allegedly planned to sell $120 million in drugs to the former NSW Crime Commission deputy director Mark Standen was linked yesterday to a Sydney drug gang that planned to manufacture $52.5 million worth of the methamphetamine ice.
Four alleged principals in the Dutch crime syndicate were named in a statement presented by federal police to the Central Local Court yesterday when two members of the alleged Sydney connection - the former Australian champion kickboxer turned television boxing promoter Adam Keith Watt, 40, and Radislov Spadina, 43, faced drug conspiracy charges.
Watt and Spadina, both from Manly, were arrested in morning raids by police on their homes after a 2½-year covert operation involving police in the Netherlands, Germany, Japan, Britain, Belgium, France and the United Arab Emirates.
The arrests came after the arrest of 15 Dutch members of the accused Amsterdam-based gang in an operation in which the Australian Federal Police arrested Standen, 51, and the Blacktown food wholesaler Bakhos "Bill" Jalalaty, 45. A Briton, James Kinch, 49, was arrested in Thailand.
The court was told that Kinch, who is charged with Standen and Jalalaty with conspiring to import ephedrine in rice packets from Pakistan that was to be used in the manufacture of $120 million worth of ice, was the British go-between for Standen with the Dutch gang.
Four of the alleged Dutch gang members - Louis Aloysius Cornelis Weerden, 43, Jan Plas, 53, Michael Clemm Von Hohenberg, 43, and Thomas van den Berg, 46 - allegedly linked to the Standen drug conspiracy - were again named yesterday in court documents which alleged they had planned another big drug shipment to Sydney last year in a deal with a separate northern beaches drug syndicate.
Spadina was named by the federal police - in documents presented in evidence to the magistrate, Allan Moore - as the alleged head of the Manly drug syndicate.
A DUTCH organised crime syndicate that allegedly planned to sell $120 million in drugs to the former NSW Crime Commission deputy director Mark Standen was linked yesterday to a Sydney drug gang that planned to manufacture $52.5 million worth of the methamphetamine ice.
 |
| Watt assault, left for dead - the extent of his injuries has not been made public |
Watt and Spadina, both from Manly, were arrested in morning raids by police on their homes after a 2½-year covert operation involving police in the Netherlands, Germany, Japan, Britain, Belgium, France and the United Arab Emirates.
The arrests came after the arrest of 15 Dutch members of the accused Amsterdam-based gang in an operation in which the Australian Federal Police arrested Standen, 51, and the Blacktown food wholesaler Bakhos "Bill" Jalalaty, 45. A Briton, James Kinch, 49, was arrested in Thailand.
The court was told that Kinch, who is charged with Standen and Jalalaty with conspiring to import ephedrine in rice packets from Pakistan that was to be used in the manufacture of $120 million worth of ice, was the British go-between for Standen with the Dutch gang.
Four of the alleged Dutch gang members - Louis Aloysius Cornelis Weerden, 43, Jan Plas, 53, Michael Clemm Von Hohenberg, 43, and Thomas van den Berg, 46 - allegedly linked to the Standen drug conspiracy - were again named yesterday in court documents which alleged they had planned another big drug shipment to Sydney last year in a deal with a separate northern beaches drug syndicate.
Spadina was named by the federal police - in documents presented in evidence to the magistrate, Allan Moore - as the alleged head of the Manly drug syndicate.
Sunday, August 3, 2008
Standen in spotlight
John Kidman
August 3, 2008
DETECTIVES reinvestigating the 30-year-old murder of Sydney teenager Trudie Adams are to question disgraced NSW Crime Commission assistant director Mark Standen in jail.
Insiders say the move is designed to determine the nature of the jailed law enforcement boss's long-term friendship with John Anderson, one of the key suspects in the slaying of the 18-year-old business college student.
Career criminal Anderson is also considering a deal with prosecutors after the sudden postponement of his sentencing on unrelated drug charges, The Sun-Herald has learned.
The developments follow the announcement of a $250,000 police reward for information leading to a conviction over Ms Adams's murder and a series of rapes on Sydney's northern beaches.
Sources have also revealed the case is linked to a string of unsolved killings, including the 1984-85 murders of Andrea Wharton and Ante Yelavich, and the 1991 execution of former Australian light-heavyweight boxer and heroin dealer Roy Thurgar. Insiders have likened the scenario to "an underworld mosaic", with the chances of solving the long-cold homicides hinging on what Anderson reveals.
On June 2, Standen was accused of involvement in a $120 million global drug conspiracy and arrested by federal police.
Anderson, 68, who is understood to be suffering from hepatitis C and dementia, was charged with trying to smuggle 27kilograms of cocaine into Australia chained to the hulls of cargo ships, including the Tampa, in 2006. His son Michael, 30, has been convicted over the same matter, with the potential length of his jail sentence allegedly crucial to any deal in the Adams case, sources say.
Ms Adams was last seen with a group of men outside Newport Surf Life Saving Club on June 24, 1978.
Her body has not been found. After she disappeared, a stream of young women came forward to report being kidnapped and assaulted in the previous 10 months, by two armed men aged in their 30s along Barrenjoey Road.
While not prepared to name Anderson or his accomplices, homicide squad commander Detective Superintendent Geoff Beresford said last week there was little doubt the attacks were connected. "Based on that link, if you like, it makes us confident that the same offenders are responsible for all those offences," he said.
At the time, some detectives were so convinced more could have been done to prosecute Anderson - also known as Neville Tween - and his alleged co-offender that a complaint alleging a lack of support in the matter was lodged with the Police Integrity Commission. It is still being examined.
Inquiries by detectives at Manly this year into the murder of Mr Yelavich identified Anderson as the last known person to see him, outside the Manly Pacific Hotel on September 2, 1985.
Routine inquiries into Anderson's background then found Standen's son Matthew staying in the home of Anderson's estranged wife Susan.
There is no suggestion Matthew Standen was aware of Anderson's activities. It was also established Mark Standen had been a close friend of Anderson for at least 30 years and a regular visitor to his Central Coast home.
Mr Yelavich's girlfriend, Ms Wharton, was last heard from on February 19, 1984, when she rang her mother to say she was staying with friends at Byron Bay.
Police sources say she became embroiled in a fatal dispute with an underworld associate of Anderson over an alleged drug rip-off and that, in the weeks before she vanished, she was warned off by hitman Christopher Dale Flannery. Detectives believe Mr Yelavich was killed after subsequently threatening revenge.
Inquiries have also revealed that the other man suspected of Ms Adams's murder is a person of renewed interest in the slaying of Thurgar, who was shot dead outside his wife's laundromat in Alison Road, Randwick, in May 1991.
August 3, 2008
DETECTIVES reinvestigating the 30-year-old murder of Sydney teenager Trudie Adams are to question disgraced NSW Crime Commission assistant director Mark Standen in jail.
Insiders say the move is designed to determine the nature of the jailed law enforcement boss's long-term friendship with John Anderson, one of the key suspects in the slaying of the 18-year-old business college student.
Career criminal Anderson is also considering a deal with prosecutors after the sudden postponement of his sentencing on unrelated drug charges, The Sun-Herald has learned.
The developments follow the announcement of a $250,000 police reward for information leading to a conviction over Ms Adams's murder and a series of rapes on Sydney's northern beaches.
Sources have also revealed the case is linked to a string of unsolved killings, including the 1984-85 murders of Andrea Wharton and Ante Yelavich, and the 1991 execution of former Australian light-heavyweight boxer and heroin dealer Roy Thurgar. Insiders have likened the scenario to "an underworld mosaic", with the chances of solving the long-cold homicides hinging on what Anderson reveals.
On June 2, Standen was accused of involvement in a $120 million global drug conspiracy and arrested by federal police.
Anderson, 68, who is understood to be suffering from hepatitis C and dementia, was charged with trying to smuggle 27kilograms of cocaine into Australia chained to the hulls of cargo ships, including the Tampa, in 2006. His son Michael, 30, has been convicted over the same matter, with the potential length of his jail sentence allegedly crucial to any deal in the Adams case, sources say.
Ms Adams was last seen with a group of men outside Newport Surf Life Saving Club on June 24, 1978.
Her body has not been found. After she disappeared, a stream of young women came forward to report being kidnapped and assaulted in the previous 10 months, by two armed men aged in their 30s along Barrenjoey Road.
While not prepared to name Anderson or his accomplices, homicide squad commander Detective Superintendent Geoff Beresford said last week there was little doubt the attacks were connected. "Based on that link, if you like, it makes us confident that the same offenders are responsible for all those offences," he said.
At the time, some detectives were so convinced more could have been done to prosecute Anderson - also known as Neville Tween - and his alleged co-offender that a complaint alleging a lack of support in the matter was lodged with the Police Integrity Commission. It is still being examined.
Inquiries by detectives at Manly this year into the murder of Mr Yelavich identified Anderson as the last known person to see him, outside the Manly Pacific Hotel on September 2, 1985.
Routine inquiries into Anderson's background then found Standen's son Matthew staying in the home of Anderson's estranged wife Susan.
There is no suggestion Matthew Standen was aware of Anderson's activities. It was also established Mark Standen had been a close friend of Anderson for at least 30 years and a regular visitor to his Central Coast home.
Mr Yelavich's girlfriend, Ms Wharton, was last heard from on February 19, 1984, when she rang her mother to say she was staying with friends at Byron Bay.
Police sources say she became embroiled in a fatal dispute with an underworld associate of Anderson over an alleged drug rip-off and that, in the weeks before she vanished, she was warned off by hitman Christopher Dale Flannery. Detectives believe Mr Yelavich was killed after subsequently threatening revenge.
Inquiries have also revealed that the other man suspected of Ms Adams's murder is a person of renewed interest in the slaying of Thurgar, who was shot dead outside his wife's laundromat in Alison Road, Randwick, in May 1991.
Tuesday, July 1, 2008
Drug plot 'to cut out Mr Bean' Bakhos Jalalaty
James Madden From: The Australian July 01, 2008 12:00AM
A MAN charged with conspiring with former Crime Commission investigator Mark Standen to import $120 million worth of drugs was allegedly going to be "cut out" of the deal because his co-accused viewed him as the "Mr Bean of the business world".
During an unsuccessful bail application in Sydney's Central Local Court yesterday, lawyers for Bakhos "Bill" Jalalaty revealed that his two co-accused - Mr Standen, the former assistant director of the NSW Crime Commission, and Briton James Kinch - had discussed in an email the possibility of leaving him out of their alleged drug plan.
Mr Jalalaty, 45, Mr Standen, 51, and Mr Kinch, 49, have been in custody since being charged last month with conspiring to import 600kg of pseudoephedrine into Australia. The precursor drug would have been sufficient for manufacturing about 500kg of the drug ice, with a potential street value of $120 million.
In the email tendered to the court, dated November 4 last year and allegedly sent by Mr Kinch to Mr Standen, the former allegedly assumes the name Linda and addresses the crime investigator as Maurice, while referring to Mr Jalalaty as Myrtle.
"Hello Maurice, I have not been avoiding you!!! I have been waiting for positive news about Myrtle, honestly I do not know where you found her?? ... She is a complete Walter Mitty. Mr Bean of the business world. We are so lucky to of (sic) discovered our faults now and no (sic) let her loose with our pension fund," Mr Kinch allegedly wrote.
"Honestly when I tell you the stories you will not know whether to laugh or cry, do not say anything to her as it only inspires her to try to explain everything away as other people's mistakes and misunderstandings ... anyway don't worry, she seems to be getting her act together (at long last), the one thing that still concerns me is her constant need to talk to anyone who comes into contact with her, but in her defence we have to realise that men are from Mars and women are from Venus.
"Apart from that I think that all is looking rosy and I'm hopeful that we can get that long awaited change of profession and well-deserved holiday! Love LINDA XX."
Mr Jalalaty's barrister, Greg Jones, said this attempt to cut his client out of the deal cast the conspiracy charges against him into doubt. But Hament Dhanji, for the commonwealth, argued that the email actually incriminated Mr Jalalaty.
Mr Jones told magistrate Allan Moore that Mr Jalalaty, a food importer who holds a Lebanese passport, would not abscond if granted bail as his entire extended family lived in Australia.
"His whole life is here," he said.
Mr Jones also said the facts relied on by the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions were heavily based on listening device material, but that up to 50 per cent of the taped conversations were unintelligible.
However, Mr Moore refused the bail application, noting the seriousness of the charges against the accused.
Mr Jalalaty, who appeared in court via video link, showed no emotion during the hearing. His wife, Dianne, was present in court but refused to speak to the media.
Mr Jalalaty will reappear in court on August 6.
A MAN charged with conspiring with former Crime Commission investigator Mark Standen to import $120 million worth of drugs was allegedly going to be "cut out" of the deal because his co-accused viewed him as the "Mr Bean of the business world".
During an unsuccessful bail application in Sydney's Central Local Court yesterday, lawyers for Bakhos "Bill" Jalalaty revealed that his two co-accused - Mr Standen, the former assistant director of the NSW Crime Commission, and Briton James Kinch - had discussed in an email the possibility of leaving him out of their alleged drug plan.
Mr Jalalaty, 45, Mr Standen, 51, and Mr Kinch, 49, have been in custody since being charged last month with conspiring to import 600kg of pseudoephedrine into Australia. The precursor drug would have been sufficient for manufacturing about 500kg of the drug ice, with a potential street value of $120 million.
In the email tendered to the court, dated November 4 last year and allegedly sent by Mr Kinch to Mr Standen, the former allegedly assumes the name Linda and addresses the crime investigator as Maurice, while referring to Mr Jalalaty as Myrtle.
"Hello Maurice, I have not been avoiding you!!! I have been waiting for positive news about Myrtle, honestly I do not know where you found her?? ... She is a complete Walter Mitty. Mr Bean of the business world. We are so lucky to of (sic) discovered our faults now and no (sic) let her loose with our pension fund," Mr Kinch allegedly wrote.
"Honestly when I tell you the stories you will not know whether to laugh or cry, do not say anything to her as it only inspires her to try to explain everything away as other people's mistakes and misunderstandings ... anyway don't worry, she seems to be getting her act together (at long last), the one thing that still concerns me is her constant need to talk to anyone who comes into contact with her, but in her defence we have to realise that men are from Mars and women are from Venus.
"Apart from that I think that all is looking rosy and I'm hopeful that we can get that long awaited change of profession and well-deserved holiday! Love LINDA XX."
Mr Jalalaty's barrister, Greg Jones, said this attempt to cut his client out of the deal cast the conspiracy charges against him into doubt. But Hament Dhanji, for the commonwealth, argued that the email actually incriminated Mr Jalalaty.
Mr Jones told magistrate Allan Moore that Mr Jalalaty, a food importer who holds a Lebanese passport, would not abscond if granted bail as his entire extended family lived in Australia.
"His whole life is here," he said.
Mr Jones also said the facts relied on by the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions were heavily based on listening device material, but that up to 50 per cent of the taped conversations were unintelligible.
However, Mr Moore refused the bail application, noting the seriousness of the charges against the accused.
Mr Jalalaty, who appeared in court via video link, showed no emotion during the hearing. His wife, Dianne, was present in court but refused to speak to the media.
Mr Jalalaty will reappear in court on August 6.
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
Additional Information - Mark Standen helped drug criminals get out of jail early
By Charles Miranda and Lisa Davies From: The Daily Telegraph June 24, 2008 12:00AM
TWO of the nation's notorious criminals were freed from jail early after disgraced NSW Crime Commission investigator turned alleged drug trafficker Mark Standen appealed to authorities on their behalf.
Ian Hall Saxon was Australia's most wanted man in 1993 after he escaped in a van from Long Bay jail where he had been serving a hefty sentence for helping smuggle 10 tonnes of cannabis resin worth $77.5 million into the country.
Saxon - a former multi-millionaire rock promoter who brought some of the world's biggest acts to Australia in the 1980s - was finally caught and served 13 years of an original maximum 24- year sentence. Two weeks ago he was released six months early.
The Daily Telegraph has learned Standen - sacked two weeks ago as assistant director from the embattled NSW Crime Commission after being charged with allegedly conspiring to import chemicals to make $120 million worth of the drug ice - months earlier had written to authorities on Saxon's behalf, acting as a referee and alleging the criminal was "assisting" police.
Federal Home Affairs Minister Bob Debus confirmed he signed Saxon's release after being told the man - who had also been charged with drug offences in the US and jailed in Tahiti for smuggling cocaine - had "provided substantial assistance to authorities".
"I made the decision before I became aware of the serious allegations about Mark Standen," he said yesterday.
"If any criminal activity has taken place in relation to Standen's recommendation in this matter, the full force of the law will be applied."
Mr Debus said all documents relating to Saxon's release would be sent to NSW Police Minister David Campbell.
"It's unlikely the (parole) release can be revoked but the Government's looking at whether it is possible, if it's found corrupt information was provided."
Saxon, 65, is currently living with family in New Zealand.
An inquiry has also been launched into the prison release of another notorious criminal, James Henry Kinch, who was arrested four years ago for allegedly orchestrating a multi-million dollar ecstasy import for distribution in Sydney, Melbourne and Adelaide.
It is understood Standen also allegedly recommended Kinch be released, using the claim he was helping authorities, and days later he fled Australia and regrouped with a criminal cartel in Britain and the Netherlands.
He was arrested in Thailand two weeks ago and is currently awaiting extradition on the original drug charges and also conspiring with Standen to import drugs.
At least 12 other NSW court cases are set to be derailed, with prisoners citing questionable activity by Standen.
Additional Reading File 7
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| Image source "The Daily Telegraph" |
Ian Hall Saxon was Australia's most wanted man in 1993 after he escaped in a van from Long Bay jail where he had been serving a hefty sentence for helping smuggle 10 tonnes of cannabis resin worth $77.5 million into the country.
Saxon - a former multi-millionaire rock promoter who brought some of the world's biggest acts to Australia in the 1980s - was finally caught and served 13 years of an original maximum 24- year sentence. Two weeks ago he was released six months early.
The Daily Telegraph has learned Standen - sacked two weeks ago as assistant director from the embattled NSW Crime Commission after being charged with allegedly conspiring to import chemicals to make $120 million worth of the drug ice - months earlier had written to authorities on Saxon's behalf, acting as a referee and alleging the criminal was "assisting" police.
Federal Home Affairs Minister Bob Debus confirmed he signed Saxon's release after being told the man - who had also been charged with drug offences in the US and jailed in Tahiti for smuggling cocaine - had "provided substantial assistance to authorities".
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| Image source "The Age" 2008 |
"I made the decision before I became aware of the serious allegations about Mark Standen," he said yesterday.
"If any criminal activity has taken place in relation to Standen's recommendation in this matter, the full force of the law will be applied."
Mr Debus said all documents relating to Saxon's release would be sent to NSW Police Minister David Campbell.
"It's unlikely the (parole) release can be revoked but the Government's looking at whether it is possible, if it's found corrupt information was provided."
Saxon, 65, is currently living with family in New Zealand.
An inquiry has also been launched into the prison release of another notorious criminal, James Henry Kinch, who was arrested four years ago for allegedly orchestrating a multi-million dollar ecstasy import for distribution in Sydney, Melbourne and Adelaide.
It is understood Standen also allegedly recommended Kinch be released, using the claim he was helping authorities, and days later he fled Australia and regrouped with a criminal cartel in Britain and the Netherlands.
He was arrested in Thailand two weeks ago and is currently awaiting extradition on the original drug charges and also conspiring with Standen to import drugs.
At least 12 other NSW court cases are set to be derailed, with prisoners citing questionable activity by Standen.
Additional Reading File 7
Monday, June 16, 2008
Fortress of corruption where whistleblowers were silenced and sidelined
Natalie O'Brien From: The Australian June 16, 2008 12:00AM
WHEN Australian Federal Police officer Wayne Sievers was handed an envelope stuffed with cash he was so angry he ripped it in half and threw it at the feet of the man who had given it to him - his superior officer.
They had been carrying out a search warrant and the sergeant in charge of the job told Sievers it was his share of the take.
"I went ballistic at him," Sievers recalls.
"I had reached the Rubicon and decided to act. I made a complaint to a more senior officer, not knowing then that he was close to the apex of a network of corruption. I was immediately punished with a transfer to a non-operational area."
It was 1989, and Sievers had been working in the AFP's infamous Sydney Drug Unit for six years. From time to time, he worked with top criminal investigator Mark Standen, who is now facing charges of conspiring to smuggle $120 million worth of chemicals used to make the deadly designer drug ice.
"I never saw him do anything wrong," Sievers says. "It was probably guilt by association, but he was part of the group that I tried to stay away from. I called them the golden peacocks. It was a very strange time, a bit like living in a low-rent version of Miami Vice."
Sievers was one of a number of people who unsuccessfully tried to blow the whistle on what was happening within the AFP joint drugs taskforce at the time.
Similarly, warnings from former AFP internal affairs officer Ray Cooper went unheeded.
Cooper particularly warned Standen's bosses in the late 1980s about his suspicious behaviour, and asked that an intelligence report be prepared on him. Cooper said he was investigating corrupt cops in Sydney at the time that he reported Standen to his superiors. However, he never heard any more.
Within a few years, allegations of corruption within the AFP were raised yet again, this time at the Wood royal commission into the NSW police, which was held from 1994 to 1997. After sensational revelations by an ex-AFP officer, Detective Sergeant Alan Taciak, who had rolled over in the Wood commission and admitted he was part of the problem in the drug unit, the federal government ordered an inquiry headed by Sydney barrister Ian Harrison QC. It pieced together the trail of corruption of some officers that began when the Customs Narcotics Bureau merged with the newly formed AFP in 1979.
Dozens of officers with affiliations to the AFP drug unit in Sydney, the joint drugs taskforce and the old narcotics bureau were named in that inquiry. The report was classified, but the Commonwealth Ombudsman was called on to implement the Harrison inquiry's recommendations.
The Ombudsman's office said in its annual report for 1996-97 that seven AFP officers were sacked and a number of others were being investigated. A subsequent report said further investigations took place but the results, and whether more agents were sacked or asked to leave, were never publicly revealed.
Cooper, who retired from the AFP for a new life as a publican, says the Harrison inquiry was a whitewash.
"All it did was create golden handshakes," he says. "Many of them (the officers named) were allowed to leave and then went on to run powerful organisations.
"It is pleasing to see Mark Standen was investigated properly, this time by the AFP -- but it should have happened 20 years ago. If it had, then we wouldn't be embarrassed now."
Both Cooper and Sievers want to know how many more Mark Standens are out there who have been named in inquiries.
"The big questions are who knew what, when did they know it, what they did with this knowledge and what was their duty at the time of acquiring the knowledge," Sievers says.
Standen left the AFP in 1996, the year before the Harrison inquiry made its report. The AFP has said he took a voluntary redundancy with a clean record.
Sievers wants to know if others were tapped on the shoulder and told to resign or face prosecution, and whether that allowed them to recycle back into law-enforcement agencies when they should have been charged.
Former NSW policeman turned academic Michael Kennedy told a 2001 inquiry into the National Crime Authority that some AFP officers had been sacked after the Harrison inquiry, but others were allowed to leave the force quietly.
"What government organisations are they working in under the capacity of investigators?" Mr Kennedy asked.
Sievers has called for a body with special oversight, something similar to a National Integrity Commission, appropriately funded and resourced with powers to assume responsibility for national integrity and anti-corruption operations at the state and federal level.
He says it should have "oversight by judicial officers and police ministers, rather than police commissioners".
"Organisations such as the AFP and the Australian Building and Construction Commission now have so much unaccountable power that oversight is needed to protect the democratic rights of people," he says.
George Williams, professor of public law at the University of NSW, says dedicated parliamentary oversight is needed for law-enforcement agencies.
"I think that is appropriate," Williams says. "Over recent years the AFP has exploded in numbers and responsibility."
WHEN Australian Federal Police officer Wayne Sievers was handed an envelope stuffed with cash he was so angry he ripped it in half and threw it at the feet of the man who had given it to him - his superior officer.
They had been carrying out a search warrant and the sergeant in charge of the job told Sievers it was his share of the take.
"I went ballistic at him," Sievers recalls.
"I had reached the Rubicon and decided to act. I made a complaint to a more senior officer, not knowing then that he was close to the apex of a network of corruption. I was immediately punished with a transfer to a non-operational area."
It was 1989, and Sievers had been working in the AFP's infamous Sydney Drug Unit for six years. From time to time, he worked with top criminal investigator Mark Standen, who is now facing charges of conspiring to smuggle $120 million worth of chemicals used to make the deadly designer drug ice.
"I never saw him do anything wrong," Sievers says. "It was probably guilt by association, but he was part of the group that I tried to stay away from. I called them the golden peacocks. It was a very strange time, a bit like living in a low-rent version of Miami Vice."
Sievers was one of a number of people who unsuccessfully tried to blow the whistle on what was happening within the AFP joint drugs taskforce at the time.
Similarly, warnings from former AFP internal affairs officer Ray Cooper went unheeded.
Cooper particularly warned Standen's bosses in the late 1980s about his suspicious behaviour, and asked that an intelligence report be prepared on him. Cooper said he was investigating corrupt cops in Sydney at the time that he reported Standen to his superiors. However, he never heard any more.
Within a few years, allegations of corruption within the AFP were raised yet again, this time at the Wood royal commission into the NSW police, which was held from 1994 to 1997. After sensational revelations by an ex-AFP officer, Detective Sergeant Alan Taciak, who had rolled over in the Wood commission and admitted he was part of the problem in the drug unit, the federal government ordered an inquiry headed by Sydney barrister Ian Harrison QC. It pieced together the trail of corruption of some officers that began when the Customs Narcotics Bureau merged with the newly formed AFP in 1979.
Dozens of officers with affiliations to the AFP drug unit in Sydney, the joint drugs taskforce and the old narcotics bureau were named in that inquiry. The report was classified, but the Commonwealth Ombudsman was called on to implement the Harrison inquiry's recommendations.
The Ombudsman's office said in its annual report for 1996-97 that seven AFP officers were sacked and a number of others were being investigated. A subsequent report said further investigations took place but the results, and whether more agents were sacked or asked to leave, were never publicly revealed.
Cooper, who retired from the AFP for a new life as a publican, says the Harrison inquiry was a whitewash.
"All it did was create golden handshakes," he says. "Many of them (the officers named) were allowed to leave and then went on to run powerful organisations.
"It is pleasing to see Mark Standen was investigated properly, this time by the AFP -- but it should have happened 20 years ago. If it had, then we wouldn't be embarrassed now."
Both Cooper and Sievers want to know how many more Mark Standens are out there who have been named in inquiries.
"The big questions are who knew what, when did they know it, what they did with this knowledge and what was their duty at the time of acquiring the knowledge," Sievers says.
Standen left the AFP in 1996, the year before the Harrison inquiry made its report. The AFP has said he took a voluntary redundancy with a clean record.
Sievers wants to know if others were tapped on the shoulder and told to resign or face prosecution, and whether that allowed them to recycle back into law-enforcement agencies when they should have been charged.
Former NSW policeman turned academic Michael Kennedy told a 2001 inquiry into the National Crime Authority that some AFP officers had been sacked after the Harrison inquiry, but others were allowed to leave the force quietly.
"What government organisations are they working in under the capacity of investigators?" Mr Kennedy asked.
Sievers has called for a body with special oversight, something similar to a National Integrity Commission, appropriately funded and resourced with powers to assume responsibility for national integrity and anti-corruption operations at the state and federal level.
He says it should have "oversight by judicial officers and police ministers, rather than police commissioners".
"Organisations such as the AFP and the Australian Building and Construction Commission now have so much unaccountable power that oversight is needed to protect the democratic rights of people," he says.
George Williams, professor of public law at the University of NSW, says dedicated parliamentary oversight is needed for law-enforcement agencies.
"I think that is appropriate," Williams says. "Over recent years the AFP has exploded in numbers and responsibility."
Friday, June 13, 2008
Accused drug smuggler Mark Standen refused bail
Ashleigh Wilson - From: The Australian - June 13, 2008
SENIOR criminal investigator Mark Standen was refused bail yesterday amid concerns his links with criminal identities and elite knowledge of law enforcement techniques could help him skip the country.
Standen, a 51-year-old assistant director of the NSW Crime Commission, faces three charges over his alleged role in trafficking a commercial amount of illegal drugs.
He was arrested last week _ along with his alleged co-conspirator, Bakhos Jalalaty _ over claims he was involved in a conspiracy to import 600kg of pseudoephedrine.
Standen appeared in Sydney's Central Local Court yesterday via videolink as his family sat in the back of the room.
His lawyer, Paul King, applied for bail, saying Standen wanted to be able to care for his ill wife and prepare for the upcoming case against him.
Standen currently spends 24 hours a day in his cell.
"While it can be said that the circumstances leading up to the charging of the accused are suspicious, in fact gravely suspicious, they are yet to amount to proof beyond reasonable doubt,'' Standen's bail application said.
Mr King also said a police search earlier this year of a container imported into Australia had found no drugs as expected. However the court later heard that Standen had also expected to find drugs in the container.
Magistrate Allan Moore said there was a substantial Crown case against Standen and refused bail.
"I can't ignore his position within the Crime Commission,'' Mr Moore said. "He has information about methodology which could assist his departure from the country.''
Mr Moore's decision came after police claimed in a statement of facts tendered to the court that Standen had maintained contact with "known Sydney criminal figures''.
"Police are concerned about the extent of contacts Standen has within organised criminal syndicates and the potential to use thse contacts to abscond,'' the police facts sheet said.
Police also said Standen had been heard discussing a pension fund that could be used to evade bail conditions.
The court heard that Standen had two brothers living overseas, in Canada and Hong Kong. The latter worked as a pilot.
Outside court, Mr King said he was disappointed with the magistrate's decision to refuse bail.
"He's entitled to a presumption of innocence and even though there's a presumption against bail for this type of offence, the court still is entitled to grant it as satisfied,'' Mr King said. "Obviously, the court wasn't satisfied that we had jumped the hurdle.''
SENIOR criminal investigator Mark Standen was refused bail yesterday amid concerns his links with criminal identities and elite knowledge of law enforcement techniques could help him skip the country.
Standen, a 51-year-old assistant director of the NSW Crime Commission, faces three charges over his alleged role in trafficking a commercial amount of illegal drugs.
He was arrested last week _ along with his alleged co-conspirator, Bakhos Jalalaty _ over claims he was involved in a conspiracy to import 600kg of pseudoephedrine.
Standen appeared in Sydney's Central Local Court yesterday via videolink as his family sat in the back of the room.
His lawyer, Paul King, applied for bail, saying Standen wanted to be able to care for his ill wife and prepare for the upcoming case against him.
Standen currently spends 24 hours a day in his cell.
"While it can be said that the circumstances leading up to the charging of the accused are suspicious, in fact gravely suspicious, they are yet to amount to proof beyond reasonable doubt,'' Standen's bail application said.
Mr King also said a police search earlier this year of a container imported into Australia had found no drugs as expected. However the court later heard that Standen had also expected to find drugs in the container.
Magistrate Allan Moore said there was a substantial Crown case against Standen and refused bail.
"I can't ignore his position within the Crime Commission,'' Mr Moore said. "He has information about methodology which could assist his departure from the country.''
Mr Moore's decision came after police claimed in a statement of facts tendered to the court that Standen had maintained contact with "known Sydney criminal figures''.
"Police are concerned about the extent of contacts Standen has within organised criminal syndicates and the potential to use thse contacts to abscond,'' the police facts sheet said.
Police also said Standen had been heard discussing a pension fund that could be used to evade bail conditions.
The court heard that Standen had two brothers living overseas, in Canada and Hong Kong. The latter worked as a pilot.
Outside court, Mr King said he was disappointed with the magistrate's decision to refuse bail.
"He's entitled to a presumption of innocence and even though there's a presumption against bail for this type of offence, the court still is entitled to grant it as satisfied,'' Mr King said. "Obviously, the court wasn't satisfied that we had jumped the hurdle.''
Sunday, June 8, 2008
Jailed cop linked to drug runner
June 8, 2008 Source
The AFP investigation into Mark Standen began in exactly the same month New Zealand authorities had intercepted his friend Anderson's cocaine shipment enroute to Australia from South America.
ACCUSED corrupt cop Mark Standen is now facing a second investigation - this time into his long friendship with a jailed drug runner suspected of a rape and murder.
Homicide detectives want to quiz Standen - placed behind bars this week for his alleged role in a $120 million global drug conspiracy - over his close relationship with underworld identity John Anderson.
Career criminal Anderson is also behind bars, awaiting sentence over an attempt to smuggle $7 million worth of cocaine into Australia.
Investigators from Manly police stumbled upon the NSW Crime Commission deputy's extraordinary connection to the 68-year-old crook three weeks before he himself was arrested by federal police.
Detectives were following a cold-case lead that Anderson was involved in the rape and murder of a Sydney teenager 30 years ago when their routine enquiry found Standen's son Matthew staying in the home of Anderson's estranged wife Susan.
Now NSW Police want access to Standen in jail to question him over any knowledge he had of Anderson's criminal activities.
Anderson was charged with trying to smuggle 27 kilograms of cocaine into Australia chained to the hulls of cargo ships including the infamous Tampa in 2006. His son Michael, 30, was spotted by police attempting to dive under the Tampa before he too was arrested. Michael Anderson is also awaiting sentencing.
Standen has been a close friend of Anderson for at least 30 years and was a regular visitor to his Central Coast home, The Sun-Herald has learned.
Former neighbours of John and Susan Anderson, by co-incidence, had also known the Standen family in Sydney years before. They told how they often saw Mark Standen at the Andersons' home.
"We saw Mark there a number of times but I didn't recognise him as a top policeman until I saw him on the news this week," said the neighbour, who was too scared to be identified.
Anderson and his wife Sue, who hosted lingerie parties, were members of the local gun club and keen divers. Their passion for diving was shared by Standen's 22-year-old son Matthew, who stayed with them. There is no suggestion Matthew had any knowledge of any criminal activity.
Matthew Standen refused to comment when approached at the Standen family home on the Central Coast, where his mother Lynn was being comforted by friends and relatives last week.
The family has been rocked by revelations that Standen, one of Australia's most senior law enforcers, had been accused of attempting to bring in 600 kilograms of pseudoephedrine, used to make the drug ice.
It is alleged the 51-year-old father of four had massive gambling debts and had set up the deal, uncovered by Dutch authorities, while on a luxury trip to Dubai with his mistress, Louise Baker. She works for the Independent Commission Against Corruption. but is not considered a suspect.
Standen has been in trouble in the past. Almost 30 years ago he was departmentally sanctioned for flushing marijuana down a toilet without reporting it had been seized. Yet this failed to slow his rise through the ranks of law enforcement.
The AFP investigation into Standen began in exactly the same month New Zealand authorities had intercepted his friend Anderson's cocaine shipment en route to Australia from South America.
Told of the revelations yesterday, NSW Police Minister David Campbell said he had not been made aware of the interest in Standen's links to Anderson. He said where and when detectives interviewed Standen was a matter for them.
A spokesman for Police Commissioner Andrew Scipione confirmed homicide Strike Force Keldie had been set up to investigate the murder of Trudie Adams who went missing in 1978.
Police sources say the strike force will be driven by cold case specialists and will be seeking to speak to Standen over his friendship with Anderson.
Anderson was among six suspects first identified during the mid-1990s by task force Loquat, which at the time also held hopes of discovering Ms Adams's remains in bushland on Pittwater Peninsula.
The teenager was last seen outside a Sunday night dance at Newport Surf Club in June 1978. Investigators formed the conclusion she was pack raped.
Following her murder nine girls came forward to report also having been raped by two armed men who had abducted them while hitchhiking along Barrenjoey Road over the previous 10 months.
Eight weeks after Ms Adams disappeared, so too did 18-year-old Michelle Pope and her 21-year-old boyfriend Stephen Lapthorne. None of the bodies has ever been found.
ACCUSED corrupt cop Mark Standen is now facing a second investigation - this time into his long friendship with a jailed drug runner suspected of a rape and murder.
Homicide detectives want to quiz Standen - placed behind bars this week for his alleged role in a $120 million global drug conspiracy - over his close relationship with underworld identity John Anderson.
Career criminal Anderson is also behind bars, awaiting sentence over an attempt to smuggle $7 million worth of cocaine into Australia.
Investigators from Manly police stumbled upon the NSW Crime Commission deputy's extraordinary connection to the 68-year-old crook three weeks before he himself was arrested by federal police.
Detectives were following a cold-case lead that Anderson was involved in the rape and murder of a Sydney teenager 30 years ago when their routine enquiry found Standen's son Matthew staying in the home of Anderson's estranged wife Susan.
Now NSW Police want access to Standen in jail to question him over any knowledge he had of Anderson's criminal activities.
Anderson was charged with trying to smuggle 27 kilograms of cocaine into Australia chained to the hulls of cargo ships including the infamous Tampa in 2006. His son Michael, 30, was spotted by police attempting to dive under the Tampa before he too was arrested. Michael Anderson is also awaiting sentencing.
Standen has been a close friend of Anderson for at least 30 years and was a regular visitor to his Central Coast home, The Sun-Herald has learned.
Former neighbours of John and Susan Anderson, by co-incidence, had also known the Standen family in Sydney years before. They told how they often saw Mark Standen at the Andersons' home.
"We saw Mark there a number of times but I didn't recognise him as a top policeman until I saw him on the news this week," said the neighbour, who was too scared to be identified.
Anderson and his wife Sue, who hosted lingerie parties, were members of the local gun club and keen divers. Their passion for diving was shared by Standen's 22-year-old son Matthew, who stayed with them. There is no suggestion Matthew had any knowledge of any criminal activity.
Matthew Standen refused to comment when approached at the Standen family home on the Central Coast, where his mother Lynn was being comforted by friends and relatives last week.
The family has been rocked by revelations that Standen, one of Australia's most senior law enforcers, had been accused of attempting to bring in 600 kilograms of pseudoephedrine, used to make the drug ice.
It is alleged the 51-year-old father of four had massive gambling debts and had set up the deal, uncovered by Dutch authorities, while on a luxury trip to Dubai with his mistress, Louise Baker. She works for the Independent Commission Against Corruption. but is not considered a suspect.
Standen has been in trouble in the past. Almost 30 years ago he was departmentally sanctioned for flushing marijuana down a toilet without reporting it had been seized. Yet this failed to slow his rise through the ranks of law enforcement.
The AFP investigation into Standen began in exactly the same month New Zealand authorities had intercepted his friend Anderson's cocaine shipment en route to Australia from South America.
Told of the revelations yesterday, NSW Police Minister David Campbell said he had not been made aware of the interest in Standen's links to Anderson. He said where and when detectives interviewed Standen was a matter for them.
A spokesman for Police Commissioner Andrew Scipione confirmed homicide Strike Force Keldie had been set up to investigate the murder of Trudie Adams who went missing in 1978.
Police sources say the strike force will be driven by cold case specialists and will be seeking to speak to Standen over his friendship with Anderson.
Anderson was among six suspects first identified during the mid-1990s by task force Loquat, which at the time also held hopes of discovering Ms Adams's remains in bushland on Pittwater Peninsula.
The teenager was last seen outside a Sunday night dance at Newport Surf Club in June 1978. Investigators formed the conclusion she was pack raped.
Following her murder nine girls came forward to report also having been raped by two armed men who had abducted them while hitchhiking along Barrenjoey Road over the previous 10 months.
Eight weeks after Ms Adams disappeared, so too did 18-year-old Michelle Pope and her 21-year-old boyfriend Stephen Lapthorne. None of the bodies has ever been found.
Shipping crates laden with drugs 'slip past customs'
Source "The Age" Mark Russell June 8, 2008
DRUG lords see Australia as an easy market, confident that with just one in 20 shipping containers being X-rayed by customs their illicit goods will reach their destination: our suburban streets.
This is the stark warning of security experts who say the flood of drugs into Australia will be stemmed only if crime bosses have reason to fear their consignments, worth hundreds of millions of dollars each year, will not make it past our ports.
Security and counter-terrorism expert Neil Fergus, who helped write the Wheeler review into airport security, said that at least one in four shipping containers needed to be screened if authorities were committed to stopping the flow of drugs and other illegal imports.
Advertisement: Story continues below
He said it was worrying that customs only checked between 130,000 and 140,000 of the 2.6 million containers shipped into Australia each year.
"If you are a criminal cabal seeking to bring a large importation of narcotics into Australia, the maritime option is going to offer dramatically better prospects of success," Mr Fergus told The Sunday Age.
"But if there was a one in four chance of losing an expensive shipment, that could be enough to make a criminal cabal think twice about whether or not to send it to Australia."
Professor Clive Williams of the Centre for Policing, Intelligence and Counter-Terrorism, agreed that more frequent screening was needed but said any significant increase in the number of containers checked could prove a logistical nightmare because of the extra time and costs involved. Delays getting containers off the wharves if they had to be screened first would cause chaos, he said.
Most countries were only screening between 2% and 5% of containers and relied heavily on intelligence to pinpoint where drugs had been hidden in certain shipments.
In 2006-07, there were 140,539 containers X-rayed and 15,062 physically examined at the Australian border. Customs' target for 2008-09 is to X-ray at least 134,000 containers and examine 14,300.
A customs spokesman said the department electronically profiled information received on every sea consignment coming to Australia. "This profiling allows customs to assess the level of risk associated with each consignment. All high-risk cargo is then examined."
He said that while there had been an increase in the amount of drugs seized in the past five years, "customs recognises that criminal syndicates will constantly react to our efforts by attempting new methods of concealment and importation. So there is a need for customs to constantly remain vigilant against these shifts in criminal activity."
Last week's arrest of NSW Crime Commission investigator Mark Standen has brought maritime drug smuggling back into focus. Standen was allegedly involved in an international drug syndicate planning to import 600 kilograms of pseudoephedrine to make $120 million worth of the drug ice.
Dutch police discovered the pseudoephedrine was originally to be shipped from the Congo to Australia but was cancelled because of problems with a supplier. It was allegedly decided to send the precursor chemical from Pakistan, where a trial shipment with basmati rice was sent to Australia in a shipping container and arrived in October last year. A second rice container carrying pseudoephedrine was subsequently sent and arrived on April 25 but was intercepted by Federal Police. No trace of the chemical was found. It is rumoured the shipment was stolen en route by a rival gang.
In a separate case, drugs worth more than $11 million were found in Sydney on May 5 inside a shipping container carrying foot spas and massage chairs. A Victorian man, 40, and a Canadian woman, 32, were charged over the discovery of 27 kilograms of cocaine and 27 kilograms of methamphetamine (ice).
The big catches
Customs X-rays about 130,000 of the 2.6 million containers shipped to Australia per year.
Since 2002 (when the first container examination facility opened), customs has seized goods including:
190 kg of heroin
4019 kg of MDMA (ecstasy)
395 kg of crystal methylamphetamine (ice)
691 kg of cocaine
1629 kg of ephedrine and pseudoephedrine.
3200 litres of chemicals used to make amphetamines
About 233 million cigarettes
472 tonnes of tobacco
Over 31,000 bottles of alcohol
A network of 231 cameras covering the national waterfront is monitored 24 hours a day from a Melbourne office.
SOURCE: CUSTOMS
 |
| Shipping containers Photo: James Davies |
DRUG lords see Australia as an easy market, confident that with just one in 20 shipping containers being X-rayed by customs their illicit goods will reach their destination: our suburban streets.
This is the stark warning of security experts who say the flood of drugs into Australia will be stemmed only if crime bosses have reason to fear their consignments, worth hundreds of millions of dollars each year, will not make it past our ports.
Security and counter-terrorism expert Neil Fergus, who helped write the Wheeler review into airport security, said that at least one in four shipping containers needed to be screened if authorities were committed to stopping the flow of drugs and other illegal imports.
Advertisement: Story continues below
He said it was worrying that customs only checked between 130,000 and 140,000 of the 2.6 million containers shipped into Australia each year.
"If you are a criminal cabal seeking to bring a large importation of narcotics into Australia, the maritime option is going to offer dramatically better prospects of success," Mr Fergus told The Sunday Age.
"But if there was a one in four chance of losing an expensive shipment, that could be enough to make a criminal cabal think twice about whether or not to send it to Australia."
Professor Clive Williams of the Centre for Policing, Intelligence and Counter-Terrorism, agreed that more frequent screening was needed but said any significant increase in the number of containers checked could prove a logistical nightmare because of the extra time and costs involved. Delays getting containers off the wharves if they had to be screened first would cause chaos, he said.
Most countries were only screening between 2% and 5% of containers and relied heavily on intelligence to pinpoint where drugs had been hidden in certain shipments.
In 2006-07, there were 140,539 containers X-rayed and 15,062 physically examined at the Australian border. Customs' target for 2008-09 is to X-ray at least 134,000 containers and examine 14,300.
A customs spokesman said the department electronically profiled information received on every sea consignment coming to Australia. "This profiling allows customs to assess the level of risk associated with each consignment. All high-risk cargo is then examined."
He said that while there had been an increase in the amount of drugs seized in the past five years, "customs recognises that criminal syndicates will constantly react to our efforts by attempting new methods of concealment and importation. So there is a need for customs to constantly remain vigilant against these shifts in criminal activity."
Last week's arrest of NSW Crime Commission investigator Mark Standen has brought maritime drug smuggling back into focus. Standen was allegedly involved in an international drug syndicate planning to import 600 kilograms of pseudoephedrine to make $120 million worth of the drug ice.
Dutch police discovered the pseudoephedrine was originally to be shipped from the Congo to Australia but was cancelled because of problems with a supplier. It was allegedly decided to send the precursor chemical from Pakistan, where a trial shipment with basmati rice was sent to Australia in a shipping container and arrived in October last year. A second rice container carrying pseudoephedrine was subsequently sent and arrived on April 25 but was intercepted by Federal Police. No trace of the chemical was found. It is rumoured the shipment was stolen en route by a rival gang.
In a separate case, drugs worth more than $11 million were found in Sydney on May 5 inside a shipping container carrying foot spas and massage chairs. A Victorian man, 40, and a Canadian woman, 32, were charged over the discovery of 27 kilograms of cocaine and 27 kilograms of methamphetamine (ice).
The big catches
Customs X-rays about 130,000 of the 2.6 million containers shipped to Australia per year.
Since 2002 (when the first container examination facility opened), customs has seized goods including:
190 kg of heroin
4019 kg of MDMA (ecstasy)
395 kg of crystal methylamphetamine (ice)
691 kg of cocaine
1629 kg of ephedrine and pseudoephedrine.
3200 litres of chemicals used to make amphetamines
About 233 million cigarettes
472 tonnes of tobacco
Over 31,000 bottles of alcohol
A network of 231 cameras covering the national waterfront is monitored 24 hours a day from a Melbourne office.
SOURCE: CUSTOMS
Kiwi link to investigation into top aussie crime fighter
Accused corrupt cop Mark Standen is now facing a second
investigation - this time into his long friendship with a jailed drug
runner suspected of a rape and murder.
Homicide detectives want to quiz Standen - placed behind bars this week for his alleged role in a $120 million global drug conspiracy - over his close relationship with underworld identity John Anderson.
Career criminal Anderson is also behind bars, awaiting sentence over an attempt to smuggle $A7 million worth of cocaine into Australia.
Investigators from Manly police stumbled upon the NSW Crime Commission deputy's extraordinary connection to the 68-year-old crook three weeks before he himself was arrested by federal police.
Detectives were following a cold-case lead that Anderson was involved in the rape and murder of a Sydney teenager 30 years ago when their routine enquiry found Standen's son Matthew staying in the home of Anderson's estranged wife Susan.
Now NSW Police want access to Standen in jail to question him over any knowledge he had of Anderson's criminal activities.
Anderson was charged with trying to smuggle 27 kilograms of cocaine into Australia chained to the hulls of cargo ships including the infamous Tampa in 2006. His son Michael, 30, was spotted by police attempting to dive under the Tampa before he too was arrested. Michael Anderson is also awaiting sentencing.
Standen has been a close friend of Anderson for at least 30 years and was a regular visitor to his Central Coast home, The Sun-Herald has learned.
Former neighbours of John and Susan Anderson, by co-incidence, had also known the Standen family in Sydney years before. They told how they often saw Mark Standen at the Andersons' home.
"We saw Mark there a number of times but I didn't recognise him as a top policeman until I saw him on the news this week," said the neighbour, who was too scared to be identified.
Anderson and his wife Sue, who hosted lingerie parties, were members of the local gun club and keen divers. Their passion for diving was shared by Standen's 22-year-old son Matthew, who stayed with them. There is no suggestion Matthew had any knowledge of any criminal activity.
Matthew Standen refused to comment when approached at the Standen family home on the Central Coast, where his mother Lynn was being comforted by friends and relatives last week.
The family has been rocked by revelations that Standen, one of Australia's most senior law enforcers, had been accused of attempting to bring in 600 kilograms of pseudoephedrine, used to make the drug ice.
It is alleged the 51-year-old father of four had massive gambling debts and had set up the deal, uncovered by Dutch authorities, while on a luxury trip to Dubai with his mistress, Louise Baker. She works for the Independent Commission Against Corruption. but is not considered a suspect.
Standen has been in trouble in the past. Almost 30 years ago he was departmentally sanctioned for flushing marijuana down a toilet without reporting it had been seized. Yet this failed to slow his rise through the ranks of law enforcement.
The AFP investigation into Standen began in exactly the same month New Zealand authorities had intercepted his friend Anderson's cocaine shipment en route to Australia from South America.
Told of the revelations yesterday, NSW Police Minister David Campbell said he had not been made aware of the interest in Standen's links to Anderson. He said where and when detectives interviewed Standen was a matter for them.
A spokesman for Police Commissioner Andrew Scipione confirmed homicide Strike Force Keldie had been set up to investigate the murder of Trudie Adams who went missing in 1978.
Police sources say the strike force will be driven by cold case specialists and will be seeking to speak to Standen over his friendship with Anderson.
Anderson was among six suspects first identified during the mid-1990s by task force Loquat, which at the time also held hopes of discovering Ms Adams's remains in bushland on Pittwater Peninsula.
The teenager was last seen outside a Sunday night dance at Newport Surf Club in June 1978.
Investigators formed the conclusion she was pack raped.
Following her murder nine girls came forward to report also having been raped by two armed men who had abducted them while hitchhiking along Barrenjoey Road over the previous 10 months.
Eight weeks after Ms Adams disappeared, so too did 18-year-old Michelle Pope and her 21-year-old boyfriend Stephen Lapthorne. None of the bodies has ever been found.
- Sun-Herald
Homicide detectives want to quiz Standen - placed behind bars this week for his alleged role in a $120 million global drug conspiracy - over his close relationship with underworld identity John Anderson.
Career criminal Anderson is also behind bars, awaiting sentence over an attempt to smuggle $A7 million worth of cocaine into Australia.
Investigators from Manly police stumbled upon the NSW Crime Commission deputy's extraordinary connection to the 68-year-old crook three weeks before he himself was arrested by federal police.
Detectives were following a cold-case lead that Anderson was involved in the rape and murder of a Sydney teenager 30 years ago when their routine enquiry found Standen's son Matthew staying in the home of Anderson's estranged wife Susan.
Now NSW Police want access to Standen in jail to question him over any knowledge he had of Anderson's criminal activities.
Anderson was charged with trying to smuggle 27 kilograms of cocaine into Australia chained to the hulls of cargo ships including the infamous Tampa in 2006. His son Michael, 30, was spotted by police attempting to dive under the Tampa before he too was arrested. Michael Anderson is also awaiting sentencing.
Standen has been a close friend of Anderson for at least 30 years and was a regular visitor to his Central Coast home, The Sun-Herald has learned.
Former neighbours of John and Susan Anderson, by co-incidence, had also known the Standen family in Sydney years before. They told how they often saw Mark Standen at the Andersons' home.
"We saw Mark there a number of times but I didn't recognise him as a top policeman until I saw him on the news this week," said the neighbour, who was too scared to be identified.
Anderson and his wife Sue, who hosted lingerie parties, were members of the local gun club and keen divers. Their passion for diving was shared by Standen's 22-year-old son Matthew, who stayed with them. There is no suggestion Matthew had any knowledge of any criminal activity.
Matthew Standen refused to comment when approached at the Standen family home on the Central Coast, where his mother Lynn was being comforted by friends and relatives last week.
The family has been rocked by revelations that Standen, one of Australia's most senior law enforcers, had been accused of attempting to bring in 600 kilograms of pseudoephedrine, used to make the drug ice.
It is alleged the 51-year-old father of four had massive gambling debts and had set up the deal, uncovered by Dutch authorities, while on a luxury trip to Dubai with his mistress, Louise Baker. She works for the Independent Commission Against Corruption. but is not considered a suspect.
Standen has been in trouble in the past. Almost 30 years ago he was departmentally sanctioned for flushing marijuana down a toilet without reporting it had been seized. Yet this failed to slow his rise through the ranks of law enforcement.
The AFP investigation into Standen began in exactly the same month New Zealand authorities had intercepted his friend Anderson's cocaine shipment en route to Australia from South America.
Told of the revelations yesterday, NSW Police Minister David Campbell said he had not been made aware of the interest in Standen's links to Anderson. He said where and when detectives interviewed Standen was a matter for them.
A spokesman for Police Commissioner Andrew Scipione confirmed homicide Strike Force Keldie had been set up to investigate the murder of Trudie Adams who went missing in 1978.
Police sources say the strike force will be driven by cold case specialists and will be seeking to speak to Standen over his friendship with Anderson.
Anderson was among six suspects first identified during the mid-1990s by task force Loquat, which at the time also held hopes of discovering Ms Adams's remains in bushland on Pittwater Peninsula.
The teenager was last seen outside a Sunday night dance at Newport Surf Club in June 1978.
Investigators formed the conclusion she was pack raped.
Following her murder nine girls came forward to report also having been raped by two armed men who had abducted them while hitchhiking along Barrenjoey Road over the previous 10 months.
Eight weeks after Ms Adams disappeared, so too did 18-year-old Michelle Pope and her 21-year-old boyfriend Stephen Lapthorne. None of the bodies has ever been found.
- Sun-Herald
Saturday, June 7, 2008
Sting 'caught accused Standen'
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Mark Standen Pic: Craig Greenhill |
On 7 June 2008 Janet Fyfe-Yeomans of the Daily Telegraph reported “Sting 'caught accused Standen'” She said accused corrupt cop Mark Standen and his friend Bill Jalalaty were the victims of an international sting which fleeced them of more than $1 million which they had allegedly been given to set up the Australian end of a drug network. The bizarre money trail involved a psychic and clairvoyant, a convicted conman, a Caribbean bank account and a 220kg Texan debt collector who wears gloves with steel knuckles when he's "at work." And the man who has been accused of stealing the money, Bruce Way, yesterday told The Daily Telegraph that he was a victim, too.
Despite making his living as a psychic, Mr Way said he never saw it coming. "We were taken by ignorance and greed," he said. "We were all scammed. Absolutely." Standen, an assistant director of the NSW Crime Commission, and Jalalaty, a Blacktown food importer, were allegedly given money by a Dutch drug syndicate in 2006. Police allege the payment was to create a legitimate import history behind which pseudoephedrine could be smuggled into the country hidden in rice shipments. Jalalaty allegedly decided to invest some of it first.
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| Michael Hurley |
It is alleged Standen then told Jalalaty about debt collector Frank Wheeler. Mr Wheeler has a two-sided business card. The front lists his specialties as "Private Investigation; Finance; Investment; Recovery of Money's". The back of the card offers 10 per cent discounts for funerals and medical emergencies. "It's much better to have me on your side than against you," Mr Wheeler said yesterday. "Mark Standen called me personally on my phone and said he had this guy with some problems."
Mr Wheeler said he visited Mr Way and met Standen inside the Crime Commission's Kent Street offices. Mr Way said he thought he was going to be charged by Standen and had no idea where he fitted into the tale until Monday when Standen and Jalalaty were arrested and charged with conspiracy to import and supply drugs. Australian Federal Police telephone taps allegedly recorded Standen and Jalalaty discussing Mr Way and Mr Wheeler's services. Mr Way said he had been unable to pay any money back because he had lost everything himself in the scam. Orehek was last year jailed for 18 months for fleecing members of the Hillsong Church of $4.6 million and flouting corporations law. Both Mr Way and Mr Wheeler said they had no idea the money was allegedly connected to drugs.
Lisa Davies - PIC told: investigate officer.
She said on his deathbed, crime boss Michael Hurley broke a life-long code and allegedly named Mark Standen as a corrupt policeman. In an exclusive interview with The Daily Telegraph, a close Hurley confidant has detailed how it was possible he sparked investigations into the senior investigator with the NSW Crime Commission. The intermediary, who asked not to be named, has spoken of Hurley's long-running battle with Standen. Before he died, Hurley made a series of allegations to Police Integrity Commission investigators, begging them to look into Standen's activities. "If all you do is sit off him for six months, you'll find something," he allegedly told them. "At the very least, just tap his phones."
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Mick Keelty Photo: Joh Woudsra |
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| Ben Archbold |
But after discussing the issue, he said something had to be done and sent his close friend to speak with them on his behalf. In a covert meeting at a Sydney coffee shop, a series of claims were made to the PIC including reference to a incident in which he alleged Standen had confronted Hurley outside the Hilton hotel. Hurley was also said to be disgusted that Standen and the Crime Commission had allowed an Operation Mocha informant, a man code-named Tom, to travel on an all-expenses paid trip overseas as an apparent reward for his information.