Elizabeth Krantz - 24 October 2005

In early April  AFP officers learned that a group of young Australians planned to travel to Bali to collect a shipment of heroin and transport it back to Australia. The police gathered names and photographs of the suspects. They could have warned them off, or waited until the group returned to Australia before arresting them. Instead they set a death trap.

The AFP sent details of the group to the Indonesian authorities in the full knowledge they could be sending the young people to their death.

Betrayed by the AFP

And how did the AFP learn of the smuggling operation? Because the father of one of the alleged drug mules tipped off the AFP in an effort to get them to intervene and warn off his son before he left Australia. But according to documents filed in the Federal Court in Darwin alleging the AFP acted illegally,  instead of intervening before 19-year-old Scott Rush left Australia, the Australian Federal Police allegedly helped Indonesian authorities arrest him in Bali, exposing him to the threat of death by firing squad.

The Federal Court application alleges the AFP assured Mr Rush's father, Lee Rush, through his lawyer, that they would tell his son he was under surveillance. 

Instead, Scott Rush claims the AFP did not let him know he was being monitored. 

Indonesian police shadowed members of the group around Bali. Armed with names and photographs, five officers staked out Denpasar airport. On April 19 five of the group arrived at the airport in taxis. They checked in and went through customs. The trap was sprung.

These facts came to light this week as one of the group, Michael Czugaj, went on trial in Bali. Indonesian police officer Brigadier Pramantara told the court that the trap had been set for days, after receiving information from the Australian Federal Police that the Australian group would make their drug run any day.

Nine young Australians could now face the firing squad if found guilty of heroin trafficking by the notoriously corrupt Indonesian legal system. If so, the Australian police officers will have the deaths of the young Australians on their conscience for the rest of their lives. They deserve to be listed on the Who's a Rat website.

A number of Asian countries including Indonesia and Singapore have a perverted view of law and order. While the authorities turn a tolerant eye to endemic government corruption and the activities of  criminal gangs, and even terrorist organisations, they zealously pursue minor drug traffickers. Incredibly harsh sentences are handed out for even minor drug violations.  All this achieves is to force up the price of illegal drugs and further enrich the drug barons, who have enough power and money to never face justice.

Indonesian authorities have no qualms about raking off huge taxes from the sale of alcohol to Western tourists drinking themselves stupid in Balinese bars, restaurants and night clubs, yet alcohol kills three times as many people as heroin.

Young Australian, Michelle Leslie faced up to fifteen years of living hell in a stinking, crowded Indonesian cell for allegedly possessing two ecstasy tablets in her handbag in Bali. After allegedly paying bribes she was feed after three months in jail. Meanwhile radical Muslim cleric Abu Bakar Bashir, received a 30-month jail sentence for helping mastermind the 2002 Bali bombing atrocity that killed 202 people.