Bali Nine executions: AFP defends role in arrests
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Australian Federal Police Commissioner Andrew Colvin says he cannot guarantee that Australians caught smuggling drugs in countries with the death penalty will not suffer the same fate as Bali nine ringleaders Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran.
At a media conference to answer questions about the federal police's involvement in the arrests of the Bali nine in April 2005, Mr Colvin said police were not in a position to arrest any of the Bali nine members before they left Australia.
"At the time we were working with a very incomplete picture. We didn't know everybody involved, we didn't know all the plans, or even what the illicit commodity was likely to be," he said.
"We were not in a position to arrest any of the members of the Bali Nine prior to their departure from Australia."
The AFP has declined to discuss the matter in detail until now, on the grounds that it could have jeopardised efforts to secure clemency for Chan and Sukumaran.
Days after the executions of the two Australians, Mr Colvin said he could not give an assurance that other Australians would not face the same punishment for drug crimes committed in other countries in future.
"On the key question of could this happen again, I wish I could assure you that this scenario could never happen again. But I cannot," he said.
He said while the AFP's guidelines for how it dealt with death penalty scenarios had changed significantly since 2005 and were now "tightly managed", the organisation could not predict where an investigation might lead as no two scenarios were the same.
"The reality is, and this is important, while ever Australians choose to travel overseas and participate in serious crimes especially drug trafficking and transnational crime that possibility still remains," he said.
"The Bali nine is a tragic reminder of the risks associated with Australians who travel overseas to participate in drug trafficking and other serious crimes.
"If there is to be a message out of these executions that we saw last week...I sincerely hope it is that other young lives are saved by people thinking twice before participating in serious crimes overseas." SMH