Tony Kevin comments on Khaled Daoed (SIEV X) committal hearing in Brisbane 5-7 April 2004

- Radio Interview with Param Berg for his " Interesting Times" current affairs program on Byron Bay radio station Bay FM 99.9, on 8 April 2004 (transcribed tape by TK)

Berg: Last time I spoke to you it was in connection with the SIEVX and the drowning of over 300 refugees. Today I want to mostly pick up on your views regarding Australia’s participation in the occupation of Iraq, but before we go there, could you comment briefly on implications of
the current committal hearing in Brisbane of Khaled Daoed? What was his role in the SIEVX tragedy?

Kevin: I will just make two caveats at the beginning. First, I am commenting only on the basis of the very good media reporting over the last few days. There has been coverage in the Courier-Mail, the Australian, AAP, and even The Guardian from London. I have read that pretty carefully but I haven’t had access to Court transcripts. Secondly, because the case is sub judice (in the court) already, I have to be careful what I say because I can’t say anything that could be construed as an attempt improperly to influence the outcome.

What has happened over the last three days is a committal hearing, in which the magistrate decides whether there is a basis for Mr Daoed to go to trial on people smuggling charges. Those committal hearings have not been concluded. They will be resumed in July. There are apparently twenty witnesses still to be heard. Survivor witnesses are speaking very freely indeed, they are ranging widely over their tragic memories of the voyage, and there seems to be no attempt to contain this evidence.

The reason I say to "contain" it is because really, for Mr Daoed to be convicted on people smuggling charges, all that the prosecution would have to prove when it comes to the trial proper is that he sold tickets. So all of this testimony being presented now is really just scene-setting, and it is also creating or refreshing in the public’s memory the understanding of what a terrible event this was. There has been very little if any evidence presented – certainly none reported – as to Mr Daoed’s degree of personal complicity in these terrible events.

This will presumably have to come later, but it may never come. Because, you see, when it comes to the trial proper, all that the Crown [prosecution] will have to do is to show that Mr Daoed sold tickets. And that could be enough to put Mr Daoed away for a very long time. Whether or not Mr Daoed was involved in acts of sabotage and acts of intended homicide will not necessarily matter in terms of the conduct of the trial proper.

I think I have said enough for your listeners to get an idea of my concerns about this whole process. I am very glad that the sort of evidence that would help to sustain my questions about the possibility of SIEV X having sunk as part of a people smuggling disruption exercise is being presented. But I am not sure that it will have a legal meaning when it comes to the trial proper.

Berg: Where would or should that kind of evidence be heard?

Kevin: Well the right place for all of this evidence to be examined is in a full-powers independent judicial enquiry which the Senate has been calling for over the past two years. However the government continues to ignore those calls. Mr Downer in December shrugged this off as what he called "just a political stunt". So until we have a more responsible Prime Minister, from whatever party, it is hard to see that there will be any full powers judicial enquiry.

(The rest of this interview, commenting on Iraq War developments and Mark Latham’s ALP foreign policy address at the Lowy Institute, Sydney on 7 April, will be posted separately).