Fed: Beazley refuses to criticise AFP over Bali Nine

AAP General News (Australia)
02-15-2006
Fed: Beazley refuses to criticise AFP over Bali Nine

CANBERRA, Feb 15 AAP - Opposition Leader Kim Beazley is refusing to criticise federal
police for handing information to Indonesia which led to the arrest of two Australians

subsequently sentenced to death.

Bali Nine ringleaders Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran were sentenced to death by firing
squad yesterday for their role in the plot to carry heroin from Indonesia to Australia.

Four of the drug mules have been sentenced to life imprisonment and another three will
learn their fate today.

The Australian Federal Police (AFP) have been criticised for allowing the nine Australians
to be arrested in Indonesia.

The family of one of the Bali Nine, Scott Rush, tipped off the AFP in the hope police
would stop their son from going overseas.

Instead, the AFP worked with Indonesian police to arrest the drug ring members.

Mr Beazley today said the police were just doing their job.

"All Australians have got to understand ... our security now is very heavily bound
up in the relationships that the federal police have established with police forces around
the region," he said.

"The only way they can effectively conduct themselves is on the basis of trust in the
region, and one of the consequences of building that trust is that they will pass information
on crimes that are about to be committed.

"So these circumstances will arise.

"The best antidote to this is not to do the crime."

Labor will make its own representations to Indonesia asking for Chan and Sukumaran's
lives to be spared.

The opposition leader also issued his own appeal to young Australians not to get into
trouble with drugs overseas.

"When you go overseas (you have to) understand that you are ambassadors for your country
and in those circumstances you do not flout the laws of the countries in which you arrive,"

Mr Beazley said.

"You should know by now that the laws relating to drug usage in the countries around
us are very severe indeed and you pay a penalty as well as disgracing your country."

AAP so/sb/rj/sd

KEYWORD: INDON NINE BEAZLEY

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