Monday's long-awaited clarification of the Australian Federal Police's role in the arrest of the Bali Nine in 2005 (a decision which led to the executions of Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran last week) was in ways predictable yet revealing and ultimately sobering. Acknowledging that many in the community were angry and upset with the AFP's decision to alert Indonesian authorities to the presence in Bali of the would-be drug smugglers, Commissioner Andrew Colvin was unrepentant. "I wish I could assure you that this scenario could never happen again," he said, "but I cannot."
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The need to disrupt the supply of narcotics – and to minimise the deaths and blighted lives resulting from drug addiction – meant the AFP was obliged to cooperate with other countries in the region, said Mr Colvin, and the "hard reality" was that many of these still imposed the death penalty.
Monday's press conference was a measure of the extraordinary opprobrium heaped on the AFP in the lead-up to and since last week's executions: police commissioners rarely respond to "please explains". The presence of Mike Phelan, the agent who made the fateful decision to alert Indonesia in 2005 and is now deputy to Mr Colvin, also confirmed the AFP's desire to put this damaging affair behind it. Mr Phelan's explanation as to why Scott Rush was allowed to leave Australia, despite pleas by his father that he be arrested, was convincing, as was his justification for informing Indonesian police about the activities of the others. The AFP, in short, had nothing on which to arrest Mr Rush, let alone to prosecute him successfully in Australia. Likewise, it knew nothing concrete about the Bali Nine's plans, and so elected to give over its "jigsaw pieces" to Indonesian police to see what bigger picture might emerge.
That the AFP appears not to have asked Bali police to keep watch on the would-be smugglers and to allow them to leave so they could be arrested in Australia is an issue neither Mr Phelan nor Mr Colvin really addressed. Both asserted that had the situation been reversed, the AFP would have arrested Indonesian drug smugglers exiting Australia without hesitation. There would be many Australians, however, who'd argue that the AFP should have worked harder on a deal knowing the smugglers arrested in Bali ran the risk of a death sentence. That said, there would be a large number adamant that the AFP's first duty of care is to vulnerable Australians not drug runners.
Guidelines for AFP cooperation with countries where the death penalty applies were reviewed after the arrest of the Bali Nine and found to be adequate. Nonetheless, the AFP must now seek ministerial approval when an Australian is detained, arrested, charged or convicted of a capital offence, rather than after conviction, as used to be the case.
The tightening is warranted given Australia's blanket opposition to the death penalty. Whether the AFP's ability to successfully intercept drug imports and to prosecute those responsible should take second place to principles is not an easy argument to settle. What is perhaps more important is the public trust extended to the AFP to act ethically and morally. On Monday's explanation at least, there seems little reason to question the basis of that trust.
