Fred Martens a political pawn on the checked board of fate and corruption

“Upon my feeble knee, I beg this boon, with tears, not lightly shed” of my regular readers for my tardiness in posting over the last few weeks. I have been travelling in Queensland collecting and collating statements from Indigenous Australians who have been victims of Australian Federal Police (“AFP”) racism and corruption. I also took this opportunity to collect another approximately nine hundred signatures on Black and Black’s petition calling for a royal commission into the AFP.

As for my character: the heart of a Hawke, the talons of an eagle;
As for my actions: I cheat the great and oppress the little.
I rely solely on slander, flattery, treason and greed,
And will never live long enough to enjoy it to the full.

I am no one else but Mao Yanshou. At present I occupy the position of Grandee of the Second Class at the Han court, at the emperor’s side. Because of my hundred kinds of crafty deceptions and my single-minded sycophantic blandishments I have fooled the old fart, the emperor, in such a way that he is, O, so pleased. My words are heeded, my advice followed. Inside and outside the court, there are none who do not respect me, none who do not fear me! I have also learned yet another trick: I’ll have the emperor see less of his Confucian ministers and indulge more in women and sex. Only then will my favoured position be secure.

Breaking a Troubling Dream: A Lone Goose in autumn over the Palace of Han – Ma Zhiyuan of the Yuan Circa 1324 CE

On Wednesday afternoon I met with Captain Fredrick Martens, one of the many victims of AFP corruption, who spent nearly 1,000 days in jail on AFP trumped-up Child Sex Tourism charges. Following what can only be described as a corrupt and/or incompetent criminal trial Martens, on appeal, was eventually exonerated of all wrongdoing by the Queensland Court of Criminal Appeal. Over a bruschetta and expresso in the grounds of Sydney Hospital, Captain Martens explained to me in detail the circumstances surrounding his arrest by the AFP on trumped-up Child Sex Tourism charges and the efforts he and his wife went to in order to establish his innocence in the face of blatant corruption and/or incompetence by the AFP and the Commonwealth Department of Public Prosecutions (“CDPP”). Readers will note that these are the same two organisations that were responsible for the kidnapping and illegal rendition to Australia of the former Attorney-General of the Solomon Islands, Mr Julian Moti QC, to face, trumped-up Child Sex Tourism charges.

The parallels with the Martens and Moti cases go far beyond the superficialities of trumped-up Child Sex Tourism charges. They both have at their core issues of bias, instigated malice and political interference in the independent operations of the AFP by Canberra’s political and beaurocratic elite. The obvious losers in these types of corruption are the innocent victims of the bias and manipulation that occurs when law enforcement becomes politicised. Less obvious victims are the poor, the sick and the otherwise needy who have their services cut when, on rare occasions, governments are forced to compensate the obvious victims of political and police corruption.

When discussing Captain Martens matters with him, the aforementioned lines from Ma Zhiyuan play “Breaking a Troubling Dream” came to mind, particularly the line: “As for my actions: I cheat the great and oppress the little.” This is exactly what happens when political and police corruption is allowed free reign. The great, the Australian citizenry, are cheated and the little people such as Martens and Moti are oppressed, all so ensure that the Mao Yanshou’s of this world are able to secure their favoured positions. And this, the AFP and the CDPP call justice!

There are none who do not respect me, none who do not fear me

The reason the AFP have been able to prosper in their corruption and manipulations is that they have been allowed, by a pathetic and gutless judiciary, to wear a false cloak of respectability. Garbed in its false cloak of respectability, the AFP practice a “hundred kinds of crafty deceptions and my single-minded sycophantic blandishments”. Because of their false cloak of respectability the AFP’s “words are heeded, [its] advice followed. Inside and outside the court, there are none who do not respect [it], none who do not fear [it]”. Actually, I neither respect nor do I fear the AFP, however that position puts me very much in the minority.

“I have also learned yet another trick: I’ll have the emperor see less of his Confucian ministers and indulge more in women and sex.” Yes, the AFP has indeed learned yet another trick. While women and sex may have a role to play in the AFP’s new bag of tricks, it is more about fear mongering and peddling false proficies of doom than it is about sex. Following the tragic events that unfolded in New York on September 11, 2001, the AFP seized the opportunity to regale a xenophobic and reactionary Australian Prime Minister and Parliament with a “hundred kinds of crafty deceptions and my single-minded sycophantic blandishments” about non-existent terrorist threats. The AFP did succeed in fooling the “old fart…, in such a way that he is, O, so pleased. [The AFP’s] words [were] heeded, [its] advice followed.” The end result was that Australia, using the AFP’s International Deployment Group (“IDG”) as its spearhead, decided that the best way to counter the non-existent terrorist threats was to occupy the states that formed the so called “arc of instability”, those states in the Pacific that to the xenophobic and reactionary minds of a racist Australian polity, ran a risk of becoming ‘failed states’ and consequently havens for terrorists and organised crime. To counter this threat, Australia decided to get in first, with its own organised criminal network – the AFP.

In order to prove its value and more importantly its impartiality to the government and people of Papua New Guinea (“PNG”), the AFP happened upon a Baldrickesq (of Blackadder fame) “cunning plan”. They were going to target one of the many Australian’s living and working in PNG, fit him up, prosecute and persecute him, then turn around to the government and people of PNG and say – “see we’re not racist, we treat black and white the same”. Unfortunately for Captain Fredrick Martens, he chanced to possess all the criteria necessary for the AFP to implement its “cunning plan”.

At the time of his arrest Captain Martens was involved in a protracted property settlement with his former wife. On Captain Martens version of events, his former wife came up with her own “cunning plan”. She concocted, with the help of several friends, certain allegations, about Captain Martens alleged misconduct with a number of underage girls – very serious crimes, if true.

With reckless indifference as to the truth of the allegations, or worse, with instigated malice, the AFP pursued the allegations against Captain Martens with abandon. The end result was that Captain Martens was convicted by the Queensland Supreme Court on the AFP’s trumped-up Child Sex Tourism charges and sentenced to a term of imprisonment. After spending nearly 1,000 days in jail for a crime he did not commit, his current wife was able to locate the evidence that eventually proved his innocence, evidence which the AFP and the CDPP had not only failed to locate, but after it had been located objected to the use of in legal debate.

To achieve this unjust outcome for Captain Martens the AFP knew it could “rely solely on slander, flattery, treason and greed”, in the full knowledge that a compliant and facile judiciary would not attempt to look behind the AFP’s “cloak of respectability”.

When we consider what happened to Captain Martens at the hands of a corrupt and/or incompetent AFP it would serve us well to remember the words of the former Chief Justice of Maine, Justice Lucilius A Emery. In 1914 Justice Emery was invited to deliver the Storrs lecture for that year by Yale University. The subject of Justice Emery’s Storrs lectures was, What is Justice, and how can it be secured?

The two points in the course of Justice Emery’s lectures that seem to have aroused the most interests were his definition of justice and his attitude towards the recall of judges. Justice Emery was opposed to the recall of judges and defended the theory of judicial review. He placed a great deal of emphasis on the independence of the judiciary. I’ll let Justice Emery speak to his own definition of justice:

The thesis I have endeavoured to support in these lectures, so far as I have a thesis, is this (1) that, after all, human justice consists in securing to each individual as much liberty of action in the exercise of his physical and mental powers and as much liberty to enjoy the fruits of such action as is consistent with like liberty for other individuals, and with such restrictions only as are necessary for the welfare of society as whole without discrimination for or against any individual; and (2) that that justice is more firmly secured by a government with a division of powers, and with a written constitution excluding from government interference such personal rights as long experience has shown to be necessary both for the happiness and efficiency of the individual subject and for the welfare and efficiency of all… (my emphasis)

Lucilius A Emery (1914) Concerning Justice, Yale pp. 164-165.

It would be interesting to hear from the Australian Attorney-General how allowing a rogue organisation like the AFP to continually infringe on “citizens liberty of action in the exercise of his physical and mental powers”, for no reason other than it helps secure from them a “favoured position” meets Justice Emery’s definition of justice.