TRANSCRIPT - PART 8

of "Secrets, Spies and Trials" at http://www.abc.net.au/4corners/secrets,-spies-and-trials/11451004

“STEVE CANNANE: Prime Minister Xanana Gusmao found out about the bugging and in late 2012 told Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard that he knew about the operation and wanted the treaty invalidated.

XANANA GUSMAO, PRIME MINISTER OF TIMOR-LESTE, 2007-12: I sent a letter to her and she said, "No, we didn't. We didn't". And I continued to insist...

STEVE CANNANE: Do you think she didn't know that this operation took place?

XANANA GUSMAO: I believe so. I believe so. I believe so.

JOSE RAMOS HORTA: Xanana is incredibly intelligent. He studied issues. He had been studying it from Day One.

He was looking for an opportunity.

So Australia handed over to Xanana the angle, the excuse, the window of opportunity that Xanana was looking, to challenge the Timor Sea treaty.

STEVE CANNANE: In April 2013 Timor-Leste launched a case in the Permanent Court of Arbitration to overturn the treaty with Bernard Collaery as one of their lawyers.

It was the Australian government that revealed that the case was based on allegations of espionage.

TIM PALMER, PM, RADIO NATIONAL: East Timor is going to arbitration and accusing Australia of past espionage in the process.

MARK DREYFUS, ATTORNEY-GENERAL, 2013: Well that's the allegation, that in the course of negotiating this treaty back in 2004 Australian officials were aware of confidential information belonging to the Timorese negotiating team and we can't comment on the matter.

STEVE CANNANE: Timor-Leste now had the upper hand.

Armed with knowledge of the bugging, they could make the case that the treaty should be torn up due to negotiations held in bad faith.

JOSE RAMOS HORTA: Because you are negotiating, and rules say you don't do these things. You are caught, negotiations finish.

STEVE CANNANE: Bernard Collaery headed to the Hague in December 2013 to prepare for the hearings.

Back in Australia the authorities made an extraordinary move

Officers from ASIO and the AFP were sent in to raid Collaery's home and office while he was out of the country."

TRANSCRIPT - PART 9

of "Secrets, Spies and Trials" at http://www.abc.net.au/4corners/secrets,-spies-and-trials/11451004

"CHLOE PRESTON, LAW CLERK, COLLAERY LAWYERS [IN 2014]: At about between nine and nine thirty in the morning, there were about ten to fifteen officers at the door.

They told me as soon as I opened the door that they had a warrant. There were parts that were blacked out on it, which I couldn't read.

And I was denied a copy due to national security reasons.

STEVE CANNANE: Agents seized confidential legal documents including a copy of an affidavit by Witness K about the bugging.

In a raid on Witness K's home, his passport was seized, preventing him from traveling to the Hague.

STEPHEN CHARLES QC, FORMER SUPREME COURT JUDGE: I was horrified. You have two parties, engaged, in litigation and one party decides that, it will, raid the solicitor's office of the other party, seize its documents and prevent its witness from coming to the court.

It's the sort of, behaviour, which, in an Australian court would be regarded as the most serious contempt, which would almost certainly lead to a lengthy jail term.

BRET WALKER: You won't be surprised to know that, by and large, parties are not allowed to ransack the files of the other party in any litigation, including international litigation.

STEVE CANNANE: Bernard Collaery was furious about the raids.

BERNARD COLLAERY, ON LATELINE, 3 DECEMBER 2013: This is an attempt to intimidate our witness and to prevent the evidence going forward at the Hague of this conduct.

Nothing else is coming out of this case but that there was an operation in league with aid programs to construct listening devices into the walls of a building in Timor to be used by the new government.

What threat to Australia's intelligence integrity does that disclosure give?

STEVE CANNANE: In the Senate the day after the raids the Attorney-General George Brandis dismissed Collaery's claims."

TRANSCRIPT - PART 10

of "Secrets, Spies and Trials" at http://www.abc.net.au/4corners/secrets,-spies-and-trials/11451004

"SENATOR GEORGE BRANDIS, ATTORNEY GENERAL, 2013-17 [IN 4 DEC 2013]: Last night, rather wild and injudicious claims were made by Mr Collaery... that the purpose for which the search warrants were issued was to somehow impede or subvert the arbitration.

Those claims are wrong. The search warrants were issued on the advice and at the request of ASIO to protect Australia's national security.

STEVE CANNANE: Astonished by the raids and the seizure of its legal documents from Collarey's office, Timor-Leste rushed to the International Court of Justice accusing Australia of breaching lawyer-client privilege, and violating its rights and sovereignty under international law.

JUDGE: Good morning, please be seated.

JOAQUIM DA FONSECA, REPRESENTATIVE OF TIMOR-LESTE [In January 2014]: It has caused deep offence and shock to my country.

It is that that brings us here to this great hall of justice, to seek justice from the World Court over the seized documents and data.

ELIHU LAUTERPACHT QC, LAWYER FOR TIMOR-LESTE [In January 2014]: Australia had clandestinely being intercepting the internal discussions of the Timorese government by means of bugging devices.

STEVE CANNANE: In a stunning decision the international court ruled that Australia could not access the documents it had confiscated from Collaery...

JUDGE [In 2 March 2014]: By 15 votes to 1 that Australia shall not interfere in any way in communications between Timor-Leste and its legal advisors.

STEPHEN CHARLES: It was seriously humiliating and an indication of what each of the judges who voted in favour of imposing those orders on Australia thought about Australia's conduct.

STEVE CANNANE: After a year, Australia agreed to hand back Timor-Leste's legal documents...and Timor dropped its case about the raids.

BRET WALKER: We'll never know how the ICJ would have decided that case, because East Timor was satisfied, ultimately, with the return that was made to it of documents by Australia.

Some very powerful arguments were put on behalf of East Timor concerning the inappropriateness of that conduct by Australia."

TRANSCRIPT - PART 11

of "Secrets, Spies and Trials" at http://www.abc.net.au/4corners/secrets,-spies-and-trials/11451004

"STEVE CANNANE: In March last year the two countries finally resolved their long running dispute, signing a new agreement over a permanent maritime boundary.

JULIE BISHOP, FOREIGN MINISTER, 2013-2018 [7 March 2018]: This treaty reflects a new chapter in Australia - Timor-Leste relations. Congratulations to all involved in this process.

JOSE RAMOS HORTA: And we thought that when we withdraw the complaint against Australia from the International Court of Justice, that Australia would also likewise not only negotiate with us, but would forget about Witness K and Bernard Collaery.

STEVE CANNANE: But Australian authorities had not forgotten about the spy and his lawyer

BERNARD COLLAERY: I was cooking a meal here one evening, and two police officers came to the door; I thought it was in relation to another case I was pursuing at the time.

And I got served with a summons. I found that to be an understatement, to say a surprise. I was dismayed, to be quite frank.

This was a summons alleging that in providing professional legal advice, I had become an accused criminal.

STEVE CANNANE: 14 years after the spying operation, and four and a half years after their homes were raided, Bernard Collaery and Witness K were facing prosecution.

BERNARD COLLAERY: I let my dinner go cold, I went upstairs, and I had to apply the medicine I had told a generation of clients accused of criminal activity to myself.

To focus on their betterment, to be positive, not to create worry in their families and the rest.

I said to myself, I've got to apply my own medicine; I'm going to face almost certainly a trial in this matter.

STEVE CANNANE: On that same evening, Witness K had also been issued with a summons.

BERNARD COLLAERY: I just knew probably how he would be feeling. The officers told me they just served similar process on my client, and I felt as unimaginably, unprecedentedly, such a duty and obligation to that person."

plantagenet,

WTF, are all these transcripts about.
Is someone preparing to do a 'play' or similar about it and needs to broadcast the script.
What a load of boring bunkum.
Could have done without the whole thing verbatim.
An overview could have done surely?
Still don't get what it's supposed to mean.

ALTRAV best to watch the 44 minute Four Corners episode at http://www.abc.net.au/4corners/secrets,-spies-and-trials/11451004 befor judging.

TRANSCRIPT - PART 12

“STEVE CANNANE: The plan to charge Witness K and Collaery remained secret until Andrew Wilkie disclosed it under parliamentary privilege.

ANDREW WILKIE, IN JUNE 2018: Deputy speaker, Australia bugged East Timor's cabinet rooms during the 2004 bilateral negotiations over the Timor Sea treaty.

The operation was illegal, unscrupulous and remains unresolved.

Now deputy speaker, I can explain today the scandal has just gotten a whole lot worse because the Turnbull government has now moved to prosecute the intelligence officer who blew the whistle on the secret operation, along with his legal counsel Bernard Collaery.

STEVE CANNANE: Collaery and Witness K were accused of breaching the Criminal Code and the Intelligence Services Act by conspiring to communicate secret information to the government of Timor-Leste.

Bernard Collaery was also accused of disclosing restricted information in media interviews with five ABC journalists.

STEPHEN CHARLES: It's intimidation, intimidation of ASIS agents, intimidation of journalists against, matters of this kind.

It's an act of vengeance directed at the people who chose to expose Australia's appalling behaviour.

STEVE CANNANE: In intelligence cases like this the prosecution has to have the consent of the Attorney-General.

It's only the second time that consent has been granted under the Intelligence Services Act ...

The public interest of any prosecution has to be considered ...

CHRISTIAN PORTER, ATTORNEY-GENERAL, 2017-PRESENT [In 2 July 2018]: In matters of this type, there's a requirement to have the consent of the Attorney-General.

But the decision to prosecute was an independent decision made by the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions based on their consideration of the evidence, the law and their prosecution policy and guidelines.

STEVE BRACKS: It would be nice to know why the attorney general Christian Porter thought it was in the public interest to proceed on these matters against Witness K and Bernard Collaery.

I mean if it was right and proper to proceed, they would have proceeded the point at which they had this material, which was several years ago."