Press Releases and Announcements - 20 August 2008
DPP slams AFP in submission to the Clarke inquiry
In a submission released yesterday, by the Clarke Inquiry, into
the Haneef
affair the Commonwealth DPP has confirmed a litany of AFP failures
including failure
to inform the DPP of key evidence pointing to Dr. Haneef's
innocence.
Dr Haneef's Lawyer, Rod Hodgson of Maurice Blackburn said that
the DPP submission showed:
(a) Despite ground rules requiring DPP involvement from early
stages in terrorist investigations, the DPP were frozen
out, time and time again. By the time they were engaged in
the matter, there was no prospect of considered and informed advice
being given.
(b) What little information DPP officers received was fraught
with factual error. The first information given to the DPP was
information about where Dr. Haneef lived in the UK. These details
were still wrong at the time of the bail application, 8 days later.
This inability to get basic facts right has been exhibited in all
other documents concerning Dr. Haneef which have been made
public. The briefing material provided by the AFP to
the DPP was 'incomplete and unfocused'.
(c) The AFP, on 12 July, orally advised the DPP of certain
matters. When a 48 page brief was delivered, the following day, key
changes in the information was not brought to the attention of the
DPP officer provided with the brief. It is very likely that this
failure to advise of changes is the source of the bail court being
misled as to where the SIM card was found.
(d) The AFP misled the DPP by saying that, if Dr Haneef was not
charged, he would leave the country. This was totally false since
Dr Haneef had told AFP officers from very early on that he was
happy to answer their questions and was happy to leave his passport
with AFP officers.
(e) A key piece of documentary evidence pointing to Dr Haneef's
innocence and coming from UK computer records, was withheld by the
AFP from the DPP. It is also likely that another key
piece of information pointing to Dr. Haneef's innocence, namely
that Dr. Haneef had tried several time to telephone a UK police
officer before his arrest, was not provided to the DPP by the
AFP.
(f) After a court had been misled by the AFP providing
incorrect information to the DPP no one from the AFP tried to
correct the information, until the ABC broke the story 6 days
later.
(g) Dr Haneef's main record of interview, was not provided to
the DPP until it had been published by the Australian
newspaper.
"This submission from the DPP, Australia's primary prosecutorial
agency, shows that the AFP ignored the ground rules for obtaining
early, high level legal advice. They apparently
orchestrated a campaign to keep the DPP in the dark, and feed
snippets of misleading information for as long as possible," Mr.
Hodgson said.
"When the AFP were running out of time, they put enormous
pressure on the DPP to give support for the laying of charges, and
even then on incomplete and misleading material.
"Unprofessional and incompetent are clear conclusions to be
drawn from this submission, about AFP conduct. Mr. Keelty and
his political masters, in the former federal government, are even
more isolated now. They have no support from ASIO, the
Queensland Police Service and the arresting officers (they didn't
make the decision to charge, it was made much higher up ) and now
we have the DPP whose alleged advice they have been trying to rely
for over a year," Mr. Hodgson stated.
Mr. Hodgson called for the AFP and the DPP to release copies of
all documents passing between them, referred to DPP submission.
He also called again for the Clarke Inquiry to be given Royal
Commission powers, to compel the AFP to make public their
submission and all key documents.
"If its good enough for ASIO, the Queensland Police Service,
DIAC, the Attorney General's Department, Dr. Haneef and now the DPP
to provide public submissions, what's stopping the AFP from
explaining its actions?" Mr. Hodgson said.
Media Enquiries: For more information or to
organise an interview please contact: Meaghan Telford on 0437
586 093.