Secret Police Bungling Exposed in OZ Catholic Worker Trial!

international | anti-war / imperialism | news report Wednesday February 21, 2007 12:07 by Solidarity Alice Springs, Northern Terroitory, Australia

They're on Trial for Us, We're on the Loose for Them!

In December 2005, Catholic Workers and friends carried out a nonviolent citizen's inspection of the secretive U.S. N.S.A/C.I.A. warfighting Pine Gap Base www.pinegap6.org The base is located in the isolated centre of the Australian continent, near Alice Springs. The Australian Defence Minister decided to charge four of the activists with the draconian (never used before) Defence Special Undertakings Act, carrying a maximum seven year sentence.

The secretive Australian Security Intelligence Organsiation (ASIO) have been involved in investigating the activists. During discovery, ASIO mistakenly listed the name of one of its own agents. ASIO then demanded that secret suppression orders made in a secret court be granted and got them.

Trial was set for September 06 but delayed after further pretrial argument made at that time by a retired Judge on the defence's behalf. He argued that the prosecution should have to prove that the U.S. warfigthing Pine Gap base, involved in targetting for U.S. military strikes in Iraq, has anything to do with the "defence" of Australia if the state is to charge the defendants under the Defence Act. The Judge ruled that the prosecution does not have to make such a link and set a new trial date for May 29th. 2007.

In the past week one of the defendants has now publicly exposed the high farce and incompetence of the federal police that resulted in the orders.

A report in the Cairns Post this week has now spread to national media.
Below is a link to the Cairns Post story:
http://www.cairnspost.com.au/article/2007/02/19/2386_ne....html

Also, please check out the Webdiary site where there is more information about the progress of the trial and the open letter from the defendant to the state addressing issues raised.
http://webdiary.com.au/cms/?q=node/1828#comment-60351

For background & photos on the Dec 2005 Citizen's Inspection of Pine Gap
www.pinegap6.org