Download PDF

MEDIA RELEASE

Nicola Roxon MP Shadow Attorney-General 17 August 2006

Ruddock plumbs new depths

Labor’s Shadow Attorney-General Nicola Roxon has attacked Phillip Ruddock’s ill-informed and misleading comparison of the trial processes of David Hicks and the Sydney gang rapists.

“Mr Ruddock’s comments are simply ludicrous and plainly wrong.”

“Obviously he’s desperately trying to deflect from his own Government’s shameful abandonment of Australian citizen David Hicks, but even for Mr Ruddock this is a new low,” said Ms Roxon.

“It is impossible to compare the timeframe, the process or the result in these cases.”

“Despite the heinous crimes Bilal Skaf and others were convicted of, they were subject to Australia’s independent judicial processes of committal, trial and even retrial. Mr Skaf was finally convicted 5 ½ years after the crimes were committed.”

“In stark contrast, David Hicks has never, 4 ½ years after being detained, been the subject of a single independent judicial trial process. If he is lucky, a proper trial process might begin at the end of the year - approximately 5 years after first being detained.”

“There is, frankly, no comparison between the cases and it is a disgrace that Ruddock has tried to draw such a tenuous association.”

“Mr Ruddock might want to fan the wider community’s fears by these inflammatory comments, but the legal community is under no illusion that he has again demonstrated his basic incompetence and inability to serve his esteemed position with any honour.”

Thursday, 17 August 2006

For more information call Allison Henry: 0417 108 362 or 02 6277 4767