AFP should intervene in Bali Nine death sentences, says man who reported plot

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 Guardian, Australian Associated Press, Friday 6 February 2015

The man whose tip-off to the Australian federal police led to the arrest in Indonesia
 of the Bali Nine says the AFP should be asking for clemency for Myuran Sukumaran
and Andrew Chan. Photograph: Mick Tsikas/AAP

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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