Balibo Five: police drop investigation into killings of Australian journalists | Australia news | The GuardianBalibo Five: police drop investigation into killings of Australian journalists | Australia news | The Guardian










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Australia news



Balibo Five: police drop investigation into killings of Australian journalists









AFP say ‘insufficient evidence’ reason for abandoning 39-year-old case which saw five East Timor-based reporters killed by Indonesian troops 

















Brian Peters was among five Australian reporters killed in the town of Balibo in East Timor in 1975. Photograph: Supplied/AAP Image




Helen Davidson






@heldavidson





Tuesday 21 October 2014 03.55 EDT







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Australian federal police have abandoned a war crimes investigation into the killings of five Australian-based journalists in East Timor in 1975.
Brian Peters, 29, Malcolm Rennie, 28, Gregory Shackleton, 29, Gary Cunningham, 27, and Anthony Stewart, 21, were killed in the town of Balibo in East Timor – now called Timor-Leste – while reporting on the Indonesian military invasion for competing Australian TV networks, Seven and Nine.
The Australian federal police (AFP) launched an investigation into the 39-year-old case in 2009, but on Tuesday confirmed in a statement that it had been abandoned due to “insufficient evidence to prove an offence.”
“During the investigation the AFP identified challenges associated with establishing jurisdiction. The investigation continued in an effort to overcome those issues,” it said.
“As a result, the AFP has exhausted all inquiries in relation to this matter and will be taking no further action. The AFP has had ongoing consultation with the families throughout this complex and difficult investigation.”
Shackleton’s widow, Shirley Shackleton, reacted angrily to the news, describing it as a “shocking” and “terrible” outcome. 
She said she hoped to launch a court case to get “proper answers”. 
“I will keep on this until I die,” she told AAP.
Fears the investigation was stalling have been raised over the past year, with correspondences revealing the AFP was struggling to obtain evidence from “overseas agencies”. 
A 2007 NSW coronial inquiry into Peters’ death found that the five men were shot and/or stabbed deliberately by Indonesian forces, including Christoforus da Silva and Captain Yunus Yosfiah on the orders of Captain Yosfiah, in order to prevent the journalists revealing Indonesian special forces had participated in the attack on Balibo. The deaths were “not in the heat of battle”, she said.
“The journalists were not incidental casualties in the fighting: they were captured then deliberately killed despite protesting their status,” wrote deputy state coroner Dorelle Pinch, who recommended the commonwealth attorney general take action.



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(From left) Brian Peters, Anthony Stewart and Gary Cunningham.


The subsequent Indonesian cover-up included the destruction of the journalists bodies, orchestration of statements and media reports to suggest the men were communist combatants, and “deliberately misleading investigators sent by the Australian government in the first six months following the deaths; and continuing to deny any Indonesian involvement in their deaths at the time and even up to the present time some 30 years after the event”, wrote Pinch.
Former members of the Indonesian military were the “one category” of witnesses who did not participate in the inquest.
In 2009, a feature film was released about the deaths of the five men, as well as a sixth journalist, Roger East, who travelled to East Timor investigating their disappearance. The film was dismissed as propaganda in Indonesia and banned.
Ben Saul, barrister and professor of international law at the University of Sydney, called for the AFP to fully explain their legal reasons for not going ahead with the investigation.



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(From left) Malcolm Rennie and Gregory Shackleton.


“Certainly the NSW coroner felt there was a sufficient legal basis to commence a prosecution,” Saul told Guardian Australia.
“So it’s really incumbent on the federal police to release their legal advice to explain why it is they think it’s not possible and why they take a different view to senior lawyers in that coronial inquiry.”
Saul, who acted for the Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance (MEAA) at the NSW inquiry, said there are “complexities” in the legal situation relating to prosecuting a war crime. 
“It has to show that there was an international armed conflict between Indonesia and Portugal … and that in the context of that the journalist were killed,” he said, adding “I think the legal case for that conflict’s existence is very strong on the facts”.
He said that while the criminal standard of proof was much higher for the police than in a coronial inquest, the AFP have not “satisfactorily” explained if they had exhausted all lines of inquiry.
In a statement last week ahead of the 39th anniversary of the deaths, the MEAA criticised the AFP for an apparent failure to engage Indonesian authorities in pursuing those responsible.
“The AFP has spent five years investigating the incident. And still there is no result,” said MEAA federal secretary Christopher Warren in a statement.
“Quite literally, those responsible for killing our journalist colleagues are getting away with murder.”
The AFP spokesman confirmed that family members in Australia and one family in the UK were briefed by senior AFP investigators on Monday.



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Indonesia




Timor-Leste




Australian federal police




Journalist safety




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