Amid allegations of gross negligence, corruption and political interventions, Mick Keelty has ‘resigned’ ( AKA ‘been sacked’ ) from his role as head of the Australian Federal Police.
Keelty's a happy boy
Mick’s dubious achievements include:
- Giving false evidence to federal parliament over the extraordinary rendition of Mamdouh Habib to Egypt, then Guantanamo Bay. Further to this, Mick was credited with pushing public opinion against Habib, while withholding evidence from the public that would counter-balance the politically charged allegations against Habib. It is instructive to keep in mind that Habib has never been even charged with a crime in any civilian court.
- Wasted $7.5 million of taxpayer’s money chasing Dr Muhammad Haneef for Howard’s criminal gang of war-mongers. This was widely viewed as an attempt to produce a ‘war on terror’ prosecution for the Howard government, which desperately wanted to add some substance to their hot air. An AFP investigation had already cleared Dr Haneef of any involvement in a 2007 bombing in the UK, so Keelty restarted the investigation, massively increasing the human and monetary resources that poured into the investigation. AFP officers voiced their concerns – some of them publicly – claiming that Keelty’s intervention was completely unfounded, absolutely bizarre, and clearly politically motivated. AFP officers subsequently took more than 300 witness statements, dealt with 16 telephone intercepts, six surveillance devices and 22 search warrants. They seized 623 gigabytes of computer data and examined 349 forensic samples. Even after all charges were dropped against Haneef, they still kept up the contraversial ( and most likely illegal at this point ) surveilance and investigations. It wasn’t until an ‘independent’ ( ie not very ) investigation was started into the AFP bungling of the Haneef case that Keelty finally backed down and ordered an end to the witch-hunt. At this point he had little choice.
- Acting as self-appointed judge, jury and executioner for the Bali 9.
Keelty decided to murder these 9, instead of bringing them to justice under Australian law
A concerned parent contacted the AFP, tipping them off that their child might be involved in drug trafficing, and asked them to intervene before they got into trouble. Here in Australia, we have rejected the death penalty, instead opting for more civilised responses such as non-lethal punishment, coupled with rehabilitation. Keelty opposed this ’softly-softly’ approach, instead preferring to butcher these young Australians, despite the fact that this is explicitely against the law, and against his duty of care to Australian citizens. So Keelty, in his infinite arrogance, contacted the Indonesian police, tipping them off, and inviting them to execute as many Australian youths as they saw fit. He calls this ‘co-operation’. Of course one could point out that the parent who original ‘co-operated’ with the AFP had done so in good faith, but Keelty clearly didn’t give a flying fuck about this, and was more interested in getting blood on his hands to show how tough on drugs he could really be when faced with an international loop-hole and a sympathetic extreme right-wing Howard government.
- Pushed full-speed ahead with Australia’s war on drug users. This is of course to be expected. What’s also to be expected is that this policy continues to demonstrate monumental failure to achieve any of its supposed objectives. Drug-use across-the-board has increased under Keelty’s watch. Many drug-related deaths during this period can be placed squarely in Keelty’s lap, as his ‘zero-tolerance’ policies have lead to tragic deaths that could easily have been prevented by simple harm minimisation policies and realistic, truthful drug education, as opposed to ‘just say no’ bullshit that youths rightly reject as propoganda.
Did he get anything right? Sure. You can’t be wrong all the time. He:
- Had a monumental brain-fart when he admitted on national television that there had been less violence over New Years because youth were kerbing their alchohol use ( which produces violent, anti-social behaviour ) in favour of ecstacy ( which produces pretty much the opposite ). It figures that I couldn’t actually find a link for this story ( media have ‘disappeared’ this story, evidently ).
- Demonstated jaw-dropping clarity when he admitted that our partnership with the US in their imperial adventures in the Middle East were increasing the risk of a terrorist attack on Australia. Of course, he later backed down, presumably under duress from Howard.
Can we expect something better of Keelty’s replacement? One line of thinking says it would be difficult to do worse. Being a realist, however, I would expect Captain Kevin Rudd to find someone of similar character and corruptibility. Prove me wrong, Kevin.