spilling the beans

Tell me I am wrong. Or tell me I am missing something,. The accused Bali Nine heroin smugglers are back in the news today. And so is the AFL. The Australian Federal Police. The Age newspaper has a sympathetic piece about the alleged heroin smugglers. The headline sets the scene: AFP spilled “everything” on Bali Nine”. Letters to Indonesian Police revealed.

 As I said the other day on this programme: Why wouldn’t they? Why wouldn’t one country’s top police force share information with a neighbouring country’s Police force? Especially when the illegal drugs were destined for the veins of  young Australians?

The Age story has a real “bleeding heart” intro.

It says: Nine days before nine young Australians were arrested in a heroin-smuggling sting in Bali, Australian  police knew almost everything. Who they were, where they would stay, when they would try to leave, even how they would strap the drugs to their bodies. It was a crime not yet committed but with terrible consequences if it was discovered in Indonesia. The death penalty. Yet, on April 8, the Australian Federal Police wrote to their Indonesian counterparts outlining – in extraordinary  detail – what would take place.  What was extraordinary about it?  I’d say to The Age reporter “get your heart off your sleeve”. I would hope the Indonesian Police would have done the same for us if the roles were reversed.

Just as if Indonesian Police had knowledge that a bomb was going to go off in a Sydney or Melbourne nightclub.

As I said the other day when the Herald Sun had an accusatory story out of Denpasar that said in part: “The Australian Federal Police tipped off Indonesian authorities at least a week before the arrest of the Bali Nine. So? Isn’t that their job.

The original tip-off apparently came from the father of one of the alleged mules. And it is the subject of a bizarre legal action in Darwin. Wasn’t it the father’s job to warn his son that he had alerted the authorities? Wasn’t it the father’s duty to try to convince his son not to go on a heroin run that, if caught, could cost him his life?

(That of course ignores the fact that the heroin bound for Australia could cost a lot of other people their lives).

I find sheeting the blame home to Australian Police absolutely weird. If the Police had confronted the so-called mule and he had said he was a tourist going to Bali for a holiday then what could they have done?  If they had detained him on suspicion that he was about to embark on an international flight with a potential crime being committed at the other end the civil libertarians would have gone ape.

The other argument is that the AFP should have remained silent and waited until the heroin smugglers got back onto Australian soil.  Yeah, sure. Just ignore a crime they knew was being committed. And what if back in Australia they couldn’t mop up all nine? Or they arrested the mules who had already had the heroin removed from their bodies. What crime would they charge them with?

Much is being made of the fact that the arrested alleged drug smugglers could face a firing squad if convicted. Well, any Australian who doesn’t know that Indonesia has a brutal anti-drug policy must have been hiding under a rock for the year of the Schapelle Corby headlines. Or the recent Michelle Leslie ecstasy headlines. And that’s for pot and pills.  Not more than eight kilos of heroin.

This is a classic case of “shoot the messenger”. The AFP is not to blame..

Wednesday, October 26, 2005

©Copyright Derryn Hinch 2005