Inquiry finds appointment of Fiji's former corruption commissioner "ethically reprehensible"
The report by a Commission of Inquiry is scathing of the process surrounding Barbara Malimali's appointment as head of the Independent Commission Against Corruption last year and the senior officials involved.
It describes it as legally invalid, ethically reprehensible , a damning failure of integrity and politically manipulated to install a compromised individual into a position of immense power.
Ms Malimali and the others adversely named including the Chief Justice, the Chief Registrar and former Attorney General have not been given a copy of the report.
The leak has complicated an already messy situation for the government as Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka had held off releasing the report while police and FICAC conducted their own investigations.
Ms Malimali who was dismissed from the position following the inquiry, says natural justice requires anyone named in the report to be given a copy to challenge it.
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News.com.au
5 hours ago
- News.com.au
Michael Furlong's killing: Son calls for stricter rules after Western Sydney dad's killer found not guilty by mental illness absconded
A man whose dad had his throat slashed by a random stranger is calling for killers to be forced to wear electronic ankle bracelets while walking amongst us in the community. Luke Furlong also wants people like his dad's killer, who was found not guilty on the grounds of mental illness, to have minimum terms set - just like in the criminal system. The police officers who helped catch Michael Furlong's killer agree wholeheartedly with Luke, saying lawmakers need to step up to better protect victims and their families. Luke was just a kid when a stranger slit his dad's throat on the side of the road outside an electronics store in Sydney's west. His dad didn't stand a chance, ambushed by a man who struck up a conversation pretending he had crashed into his car and damaged the bumper bar. But really, he was under the delusion that the much-loved Sydney dad was part of some AFP conspiracy to bug him and monitor his conversations. He sliced Mr Furlong's throat with a large Bowie knife, then chased after his brother who ran for his life. He returned to find Mr Furlong, who'd managed to stagger a few metres, collapsed at the steps of the electronics store. A few hours later, the killer was found asleep in a stolen car in Centennial Park. The blood-stained knife and Mr Furlong's wallet were inside. The killer was eventually found not guilty of murder on the grounds of mental illness. As if the ghastly killing wasn't enough, Luke and his family were thrown into a fresh hell five years ago when Mr Furlong's killer absconded from a facility in country NSW while on day release. They lived in fear for two days until police tracked him down at the Holiday Inn in Parramatta, more than, 200 kilometres away thanks to a tip-off from a hotel employee. Luke is demanding stricter rules for killers who are found not guilty on grounds of mental illness. He wants patients to be forced to wear ankle bracelets when on community release and believes there should be mandatory periods set - much like in the criminal system - for killers to remain detained before being allowed on day release. 'I think we have to trust the judiciary but there should be a mandatory period set because these killers are allowed out on day release within a few years but at the end of the day they have still taken a life,' he said. 'Every six months my family has to go through the emotion of knowing he will again be considered for changes to his conditions. You need to give the families time to get through the mourning, the loss but every six months they are hit with it too. 'We are lucky, we have had 23 years of him being locked up but in other cases killers are out on day release within a few years. And families every six months have to prepare themselves that that might be the case. 'It's not putting the victims first, it's putting the killers first.' Twenty-two years after his father's murder, Luke and his mum Colline met with the detectives who worked on Mr Furlong's murder - former detectives Scott Rogan and Peter Hogan, who co-host the True Crime Podcast Watching Two Detectives. 'The experience was really like no other. To finally sit and meet the men who put my father's killer behind bars and get the real facts about what happened that day from the men who worked effortlessly on the case was more healing than any therapy ever could be,' he said. The two former police officers agree the system favours killers over victims' families. 'I think having a minimum 10 to 15 year period is appropriate, then after that, once a killer applies for release and is denied, they shouldn't be allowed to apply again for another two years,' Mr Hogan said. 'Watching what Luke and his family have gone through, time and time again, having to prepare submissions for hearings and face the reality his dad's killer could walk free it's too much. It's unfair. Where is the justice?' Mr Rogan agreed, saying a mandatory period would also allow doctors and specialists to make sure treatment regimes are working. 'We need to do things that give peace of mind to families.' All agreed ankle bracelets are a 'no brainer' and a simple step to bring that assurance to families. 'My dad's killer was wandering out in the public and police can't even say please be on the lookout this person is a killer,' Luke said. 'At least if they had ankle bracelets, and they went where they shouldn't or stayed out when they should be back, why can't they have an alarm on them so they would at least alert the public that something is up. It might make them think twice.' 'This is not a popular thing to say but whether dad's killer was mentally fit at the time or not, whether all killers are, they need to understand what they did was wrong if they want to be out in society. 'I think part of their rehabilitation really needs to be that they really are made to understand what happened and the effects it has had on people's families, and they need to own it.' Parliamentary Secretary for Health Dr Michael Holland told NSW Parliament last year the Government does not support imposing a condition that forensic patients must be subject to electronic monitoring while absent. He said the system, in its current state, 'provides appropriate protections to the community' and the 'scale and application of electronic monitoring would be entirely new to the justice and forensic mental health system. It would require thorough analysis to understand the operational, legal and financial feasibility.' Minister for Mental Health Rose Jackson described Luke's story as 'heartbreaking'. 'No family should have to experience what his did, and I want to acknowledge their courage in continuing to speak out and push for change,' Ms Jackson said. The NSW Government introduced significant legislative reforms last year to strengthen protections for victims and the community, including stricter requirements and greater judicial oversight for those found not guilty by reason of mental illness. 'This includes greater scrutiny around decisions made relating to day release,' Ms Jackon said. 'The scale and application of electronic monitoring in this context would be entirely new to the justice and forensic mental health system. It raises complex legal, clinical and operational questions that would need careful and thorough analysis.' The Minister said the NSW Government 'remains committed to listening and to continuing the difficult but necessary work of strengthening our systems to protect victims and uphold community safety'.
ABC News
10 hours ago
- ABC News
Fiji enthralled by the return of the Mara chiefly dynasty
On the program this week: Excitement in Fiji as Ratu Tevita Mara, son of the country's founding prime minister, becomes the high chief of the Lau islands in a series of sacred rituals over several days. Pressure on the International Seabed Authority to finalise regulations to govern deep-sea mining in international waters as the United States looks to forge ahead on its own. Tonga's government strengthens its cyber security capabilities after data at the country's largest hospital was hacked and encrypted for ransom. Australian Federal Police to be embedded with Fiji's police force to combat multinational drug syndicates using Pacific islands as smuggling staging points. And a partnership between the Australian and Papua New Guinean Defence Forces is helping PNG military pilots get their commercial pilots licences.
News.com.au
14 hours ago
- News.com.au
Minister's death spooks Russian elite amid corruption clampdown
The reported suicide of Russia's transport minister hours after he was dismissed by President Vladimir Putin, sparking speculation he would be arrested on corruption charges, has shaken the country's elite. Roman Starovoyt was buried in Saint Petersburg on Friday, with his family weeping at his open coffin before it was lowered into the ground. The 53-year-old was found dead in his car on Monday in an elite Moscow suburb -- hours after Putin issued a decree to fire him, with no explanation. Russian investigators say he shot himself. Media reports said he was being investigated for corruption and could have been arrested within days. While government departments sent flowers and some ministers attended a memorial ceremony in Moscow a day earlier, there was unease over the fate of Starovoyt, who had climbed the ranks of Russia's bureaucracy to a seat in the cabinet. Many who came to the ceremony in Moscow refused to speak to AFP. "It's a great loss. Very unexpected," said Valentina, a 42-year-old translator whose husband worked with Starovoyt. "He was very active, cheerful and loved life very much. I don't know how it happened." - 'Scapegoat' - Starovoyt had been governor of Russia's western Kursk region before being promoted to Moscow, just a few months before Ukrainian troops captured dozens of border settlements in a surprise cross-border incursion. His successor was arrested in the spring for embezzling funds intended to beef up the fortifications that Ukraine ended up slicing through with ease. "They tried to make him the scapegoat... It's easier to put the blame on a civilian official," political commentator Andrey Pertsev told AFP. The case is one part of a wider crackdown on officials alleged to have enriched themselves at the expense of the Russian army during the Ukraine offensive. The crackdown is a Kremlin campaign that has ripped up previous norms about what is acceptable for Russian officials. "There used to be rules, where people knew that once you climbed up high enough, they wouldn't mess with you," Pertsev said. "But they do not work any more." In a sign of how out of favour Starovoyt had become, Putin has not publicly commented on his death. Asked if Putin would attend the ceremony in Moscow, his spokesman told reporters: "The president has a different work schedule today." At the funeral in Saint Petersburg on Friday, two regional governors were the highest-ranking officials to show face. - 'Holy war' - While Putin has criticised corruption and vowed to stamp it out throughout his 25 years in power, his rule has been characterised by systemic graft, critics say. The smattering of high-profile arrests has more typically been used to target opponents or come about as the result of infighting among those lower down Russia's chain of power. But the military offensive against Ukraine has changed that. "Something within the system has started to work completely differently," analyst Tatiana Stanovaya wrote after Starovoyt's death. "Any action or inaction that, in the eyes of the authorities, increases the state's vulnerability to hostile actions by the enemy must be punished mercilessly and uncompromisingly," Stanovaya said. In such a climate, it was inevitable that heads would have to roll over the Kursk failings. Nina Khrushcheva, a professor at The New School, a university in New York City, said Starovoyt's apparent suicide showed the Russian elite was "scared". The current climate is such that "it is impossible to leave the top brass", said Khrushcheva, who is also the great-granddaughter of Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev. "This is something we have not really seen since 1953," she told AFP, referring to Joseph Stalin's execution of a close ally. To the Kremlin, the Ukraine military campaign is a "holy war" that has rewritten the rules of loyalty and service. "During a holy war, you don't steal... You tighten your belts and work 24 hours a day to make the weapons you need." That atmosphere, said Stanovaya, has created a "sense of hopelessness" among officials in Moscow that is unlikely to fade. "Going forward, the system will be ready to sacrifice increasingly prominent figures," she warned.
