Statistics, lies and the #AFP

Thus Friend comforted me. I took great comfort from his counsel, and it seemed to me, indeed that he knew at least more than Reason did. But before he had finished his argument, which agreed strongly with me, Sweet Thought, and Sweet Talk came back, and from then on they stayed close to me and hardly ever left me afterward. But they did not bring Sweet Looks; I did not blame them for having left him, for I knew well that they couldn’t bring him.

The Romance of the Rose; Guillaume de Lorris and Jean de Meun, lines 10003 to 10014. Trans. Charles Dahlberg

At the 2011 Aussie Bloggers Conference a well-known and established blogger in the course of her presentation made the following observation, “When you first start your blog, you eagerly check your statistics every night to see how your posts have been received… after a while, well…” And so it is, but what is unexpected is when a ‘sleeper’ becomes your driver months after it was first published. On the twenty-second of August 2012 I published a post under the title A lie by any other name does not make a truth, unless you’re the AFP. This was a moderately successful post when it first went up, achieving about 2200 views. So far this month (January, 2013) it has been viewed in excess of twenty thousand (20,000) times. January 2013 is also on track to be the first month that blakandblack.com has broken the sixty-thousand (60,000) unique IP view mark, an achievement driven, not exclusively, but significantly by posts relating to Australian Federal Police (“AFP”) fraud, #sexism, #corruption and #racism issues. I wonder what is going on in the crumbling edifice we all know and love as the #AFP?

What is significant about A lie by any other name does not make a truth, unless you’re the AFP is that it details the process via which the #AFP corruptly changed both the birth date and the name of one of Capt. Fred Martens accusers, Ms Daphney Musa, so that she appeared to be under 16 years of age when it was alleged that she first engaged in sexual intercourse with Capt. Martens. The reality is that on any reading of the unaltered facts, Ms Musa would have been over 16 years of age when the first alleged incident with Capt. Martens occurred. The fact that she later recanted all of her testimony to the #AFP, makes the AFP’s conduct in this matter all the more reprehensible and concerning.

The Office of the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions

During Capt. Martens trial the CDPP (“Commonwealth Department of Public Prosecutions”) ran the line, as they usually to do, that we must trust the #AFP because they are a professional police service made up of men and women with the highest integrity. On the basis of this reasoning, Capt. Martens spent almost 1,000 days in jail for a crime that he did not commit.

Harking back to the aforementioned quote from The Romance of the Rose, “Thus Friend comforted me. I took great comfort from his counsel, and it seemed to me, indeed that he knew at least more than Reason did.” It is hard to argue against reason, even if that reason has been corrupted by fraud, #corruption and #racism. In the case of Capt. Martens, reason was corrupted by the appearance of Sweet Thought and Sweet Talk, animating the corporeal form of the CDPP.

Let’s put allegory aside for a moment and look are the raw, hard facts of Capt. Martens’ trial. There can’t be any dispute that the #AFP altered Ms Musa’s birth records, records that were maintained by the Papua New Guinea (“PNG”) Government. The only possible reason the #AFP could have had for doing this was to create the illusion of criminality, where none existed. This is reason, but is it justice?

More concerning is that the #CDPP in prosecuting Capt. Martens would have, or should have examined all of the statements and other evidence put to it by the #AFP. If the #CDPP had examined all of the evidence produced by the #AFP, it should have noticed the blaring anomaly in the Daphney Musa timeline. If the #CDPP failed to examine all of the evidence it was relying on to prosecute Capt. Martens, then it was negligent.Either way the #CDPP as an organisation must be held accountable – #Australia deserves better!

In suggesting the #CDPP could have been negligent rather than outright complicit in what happened to Captain Martens I was perhaps being overly generous. Lets consider the rile of the #CDPP in a little more detail.

The original charge against Capt. Martens relating to Ms Musa was:

That on a date in mid to late 1996, in Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea, Frederick Arthur MARTENS, did engage in sexual intercourse with a person who was under 16 years of age, namely Daphney Musa, contrary to section 50BA of the Crimes Act 1914.

Prima facie there is a case against Capt. Martens. However, let’s consider the evidence in a little more detail. Daphney Musa in her statement dated 5 August 2004 stated that the first time she had sex with Capt. Martens was on his boat in 1996 when she was fifteen years of age. The vessel on which this offence is alleged to have occurred was the M.V. Bukap. (aka M.V freedom) at the time of the alleged offence the M.V. Bukap was neither in Port Moresby nor was it under Capt. Martens’ control. It had in fact been stolen from Lae at Voco Point on 26 July 1994, and was not recovered until the 2 December 1997 by the PNG police, meaning that either Ms Musa’s recollection of the timing of the events she described was wrong or the events themselves did not occur.

On learning of the aforementioned factual inconsistency with Ms Musa’s statement, the #CDPP, made an application to the Committal Court Cairns Queensland to amend the date of the first alleged offence to suit the arrival of Capt. Martens previously stolen vessel at Port Moresby. This application to the Committal Court by the #CDPP to amend the charge against Capt. Martens was successful. The charge relating to the Musa allegations now read:

That on a date between the beginning of December 1997 to a date at the end of December 1997, in Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea, Frederick Arthur MARTENS, did engage in sexual intercourse with a person who was under 16 years of age, namely Daphney Musa, contrary to section 50BA of the Crimes Act 1914.

The problem for the #CDPP was that by amending the charge to a “… date between the beginning of December 1997 to a date at the end of December 1997…”, there could be no offence, as Ms Musa by then was over sixteen years of age. This meant that to justify their arrest of Captain Martens over the Musa allegation, Ms Musa’s date of birth had to be changed.

To accommodate this new scenario, Ms Musa’s parents Galakiyato Musa and Richard Ibali Sulama officially registered her birth with the PNG Register General in Port Moresby on 20 October, 2004. By this time Ms Musa was either 21 or 23 years of age depending on which birth year we take as being correct. With the registration of her birth in 2004, Daphney Musa became Daphney Sulama with an official year of birth that could accommodate all of the circumstances surrounding the now established arrival the M.V. Bukap in Port Moresby.

On 4 October 2011 Ms Musa, now known as Daphney Sulama, was issued with a new PNG passport with a document number of B315545 and showing her birth date as 23 September, 1983.

Captain Martens’ ongoing pursuit for justice

I’m sure much to the chagrin of the #CDPP, the #AFP and the Australian Government Solicitor (“AGS”), Captain Martens was admitted to hospital last December with a life threatening illness. I use the word chagrin, because Capt. Martens survived and lives to fight on. What Capt. Martens is fighting for is justice for the 1,000 days he spent in jail for a crime he did not commit. Indeed for a crime he was fitted-up on by the #AFP with the apparent compliancy of the #CDPP. During his time in jail, one of Captain Martens’ children died in #PNG for want of medical attention, medical attention which could have been provided if Capt. Martens were not in jail on politically motivated charges constructed by the #AFP in consort with the #CDPP.

What the #AGS is doing by contesting every last detail of Capt. Martens’ claim, is rubbing salt into the raw wounds of unjust incarceration and the death of a child, and the #AGS, #CDPP and #AFP call this reason – I call it #corruption – you the readers of BlakandBlack call it what you will!

When I last spoke with Capt. Martens, he was approaching yet another firm of lawyers to take his case. This time he is properly funded and ready for the fight. Why the #AFP would want yet another court ruling on their misconduct and #corruption is beyond me, but there’s no accounting for arrogance or stupidity or both. Perhaps if the #AFP and #CDPP just got about doing their jobs properly, there would be no need for sites like Blak and Black and innocent people like Captain Martens wouldn’t have to spend 1,000 days in jail for crimes they did not commit, while watching their lives destroyed all so some useless so-called servant of the public can secure their next promotion. Is this the Australia you really want to call home?