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AUSTRALIAN ATTORNEY GENERAL THINKING OF APPEALING AGAINST BAILING OUT LTTE SUSPECTS IN TERRORIST CASEBy Walter JayawardhanaThe Australian Attorney General announced that he has taken steps to
challenge the Supreme Court decision to release on bail suspects of
the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam ( LTTE) . The announcement came soon after Supreme Court Justice Bernard Bongiorno
granted bail to Arunanl Vinayagamurthi (33) of Mt. Waveryly, Sydney
and Sivaraja Yathavan (36) of Vermont South of the same city were allowed
bail. Attorney General of Australia took this decision despite the warning
of the Justice Bernard Bongiorno that the Australian Judicial system
should not be tampered with political interference. The Australian government is reportedly worried about terrorist suspects
getting bailed out by the verdicts of the judges. In the other terrrorist
related case of the failed London bombings the government cancelled
the the working visa of Dr. Mohamed Haneef(27) after he was bailed out
by a a magistrate. In a different court house, on the precedent verdict
of Justice Bongiorno, Arumugam Rajeevan who was also accused of funneling
600,000 Australian Dolllars was also bailed out. He was a co-defendant
of the same case of Yathavan and Vinayagamoorthy. The lawyers for Yathavan and Vinayagommorthy argued in the case under
exceptional circumstances the suspects should be allowed bail. Arumugam Vinayagamoorthy and Sivarajah Yathavan were arrestest last
May for providing support and being members of the terrorist organization
called LTTE also known as the Tamil Tigers. Justice Bongiorno said the
charges against the men were very serious and that’s why the law
wanted them to show exceptional circumstances to bail them out. But
he said , “But it must also be kept in mind that they are entitled
to the full benefit of the presumption of innocence. If that principle's
abandoned or modified for political expediency, we risk the legal foundation
of our whole criminal justice system." "These men are innocent of these crimes unless and until they
are proved beyond reasonable doubt to be guilty." He further said, “ Police allege the men raised money, with a
colleague(Jeyakumar) who died earlier this year, for the Tigers through
the Tamil Co-ordination Committee and bought equipment similar to that
used by the group in military actions in Sri Lanka.” The defence lawyers argued since there had been a delay between the
first interview and being charged the accused were entitled to the benefits
of exceptional circumstances and therefore should be jailed. The police charged Yathavan and Vinayagamoorthy raised money with a
colleague called Jeyakumar to help buy equipment for Tamil Tiger terrorist
activities in Sri Lanka In a different court house Chief magistrate Ian Gray bailed out Arumugam
Rajeevan on the strength of the earlier Supreme Court decision. All three men were bailed on their own undertaking with a $100,000
surety each and conditions that included not leaving Australia, daily
reporting to police and living at permanent addresses. |
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