Barrister
who tipped off Australian federal police about drug plot says AFP has to take
responsibility for fate of Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran
The
barrister who represented Bali Nine member Scott Rush says the Australian federal police have a duty to intervene on behalf of Andrew Chan and Myuran
Sukumaran, who face imminent execution for their part in the 2005 drugs plot.
Bob Myers,
a friend of the Rush family, tipped off the AFP in 2005 about the planned
heroin run from Bali to Australia.
He says the
AFP betrayed the Bali Nine, and instead of warning Rush and giving him the
chance to abort the drug mission they alerted Indonesian authorities, sparking
the arrests of the nine Australians.
Speaking on
ABC radio on Friday morning, Myers said he would never forgive the AFP for a
gross betrayal that seems all but certain to result in executions of Chan and
Sukumaran.
Now was the
time for the AFP to take responsibility for its role, he said.
“They are
the ones that should be coming out now and saying we made an enormous mistake
and we ourselves ask the [Indonesian] attorney general [for clemency],” Myers
said.
He said a
guideline, in place at the time of the Bali Nine drug plot, prevented the AFP
from cooperating with requests from other countries in cases that could expose
Australians to the death penalty.
“But here,
there wasn’t cooperation at the request of the Indonesian authorities. This was
voluntarily giving information to Indonesia,” Myers said. “That’s the loophole.
It was so close to illegal activity.”
Myers said
the AFP had since amended its guidelines, but the organisation should still
have to take responsibility for its actions in the Bali Nine case.
“I am
really urging the politicians, I’m asking the AFP to stand up and say this was
our fault,” he said. “It sickens me to think that the very organisation charged
with our protection ... the AFP ... can betray nine young Australians the way
they did. It is really just outrageous.”
The AFP has
been contacted for comment.
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