Charges against Bernard Collaery dropped by A.G. Dreyfus

[ferball]

Attorney General Mark Dreyfus has ordered the ACT Supreme Court to drop charges against the lawyer for Witness K, Bernard Collaery yesterday and today it did.

This is a huge thing, a great day for Australia, after some really dark times. Its good to see someone wind back some of the authoritarian madness that's gripped this country recently.

 

[FredLeDeux]

Attorney General Mark Dreyfus has ordered the ACT Supreme Court to drop charges against the lawyer for Witness K, Bernard Collaery yesterday and today it did.

This is a huge thing, a great day for Australia, after some really dark times. Its good to see someone wind back some of the authoritarian madness that's gripped this country recently.

That's the easy part.

Now let's see if Dreyfus has the balls to grant a pardon to Witness K.

 

[cartwright]

I’m guessing a lot of people wouldn’t even know what this is about

But while the legal battle has been extremely complicated and shrouded in secrecy thanks to then-attorney-general Christian Porter invoking the National Security Act, the dispute was simply over whether Mr Collaery could have an open jury trial, or a prosecution held largely in secret.

ACT Supreme Court formally ends prosecution of Canberra lawyer Bernard Collaery - ABC News

amp.abc.net.au

 

[Not Important]

 

[Not Important]

That's the easy part.

Now let's see if Dreyfus has the balls to grant a pardon to Witness K.

you'd think that would follow. a bit trickier politically tho.

 

[Not Important]

 

[ferball]

The day I started this thread my neighbours, a mother and father and their 12 year old son, were dragged from their beds at 7.00 am, about 5 minutes before sunrise where they are, by men dressed in black, wearing balaclavas and body armour, armed with assault rifles and combat shotguns. They were then ordered to stand in the cold without any warm clothing for hours while those armed men and their bosses marched all over the property looking for a non existent drug lab.

There 12 year old was woken by one of these armed, scarily dressed men waving an assault rifle in his face, then dragged outside by him and his colleagues. Its crazy this shit happens here. I get the need for precautions with serious drug manufacturing. But ffs get your facts right before you go nuts. At least 30 vehicles, at least 50 cops, including federal police. No one ended up charged because nothing illegal was found.

They live on a hippie commune thingee - a multiple occupancy community and the cops had warrants for the entire place but the stopped pretty soon after that first property and went home.

What the **** is going on with all that?

 

[Gethelred]

The day I started this thread my neighbours, a mother and father and their 12 year old son, were dragged from their beds at 7.00 am, about 5 minutes before sunrise where they are, by men dressed in black, wearing balaclavas and body armour, armed with assault rifles and combat shotguns. They were then ordered to stand in the cold without any warm clothing for hours while those armed men and their bosses marched all over the property looking for a non existent drug lab.

There 12 year old was woken by one of these armed, scarily dressed men waving an assault rifle in his face, then dragged outside by him and his colleagues. Its crazy this s**t happens here. I get the need for precautions with serious drug manufacturing. But ffs get your facts right before you go nuts. At least 30 vehicles, at least 50 cops, including federal police. No one ended up charged because nothing illegal was found.

They live on a hippie commune thingee - a multiple occupancy community and the cops had warrants for the entire place but the stopped pretty soon after that first property and went home.

What the * is going on with all that?

Did it make the news?

 

[ferball]

Did it make the news?

I don't think so.

I live in the hills behind Nimbin so drug raids aren't uncommon. But this was pretty full on and over the top. The family rent the property from someone who does a radio show, the Hemp Hour, on Nimbin Community radio, and managed to ring him during the raid and spoke on air. One of the people that does that show basically formed the Legalise Cannabis political party (formerly Help End Marijuana Prohibition or HEMP) themselves. Micheal Balderstone. He's been the driving force behind it for decades.

So it will get political. I've been speaking to the people affected by the raid and they are a bit freaked out. But we're gonna do something about it. make a documentary, maybe contact Jordan Shanks (lol) and get him on board. The landlord I mentioned knows at least one Greens senator as well. Not sure if its State or Federal level.

It would have cost at least $100,000 but maybe five times that. I don't really know the costs but multiple jurisdictions, a shitload of fully armed TRG type cops and I counted at least 20 vehicles including a police rescue truck and several with interstate plates (but there were alot more than what I counted.) At least 50 police officers. Drones surveying the area. And not one arrest (at least at this stage but there is no reports of anyone finding anything. Not even a mull plant, which is kind of surprising considering where we are.) My understanding is they had a warrant for the entire property, which has multiple occupancies but didn't serve it over the whole place after they realised they had ****ed up. They seemed to have gone before lunch time. Its across the road from me so i could see a bit of what was happening thru the trees and down the road.

They even asked to search the shed on my place. I was gonna make them get a second warrant cos this place wasn't named on it but I was starting to feel sorry for the fella in charge by that point. He was desperate to find a drug lab of some sort, so I let him have look around. Plus at that point my kids hadn't even noticed so I didn't want to disturb them, just let the coppers have a quick look after berating them with the point that should have had a warrant and I was doing them a favour and they pissed off.

The family are migrants. The dad is black, originally from India but here since last century, then moved to Italy a few years ago to marry the mum. The mum is Italian and they just came to the country last year because Italy is becoming a fascist shithole according to them. Unlike Australia.

So non white migrants held at gun point in a scene that wouldn't have looked out of place during the opening of Brazil (the movie.) And nothing came of the raid. Its a massive **** up. Imagine if the kid had freaked out and a nervous cop armed with an assault rifle had freaked out and shot him?

Its just hard to think about how badly pear shaped things could have gone.

 

[Not Important]

sometimes humour has a ring of truth.