As part of a media law subject I teach I begin by stating "Rene Rifkin is a criminal!" and then asking the class if I’ve just defamed him. Usually the group is split about 50 – 50. However, what I have stated is a legal fact. Rene, who obviously got up someone’s nose in order to go down in the way he did, is a convicted fraudster. There is no doubt about that. He came under suspicion. His actions were investigated. He was charged and as all ‘good men’ do, trumpeted his innocence all the way to the jail. This was to no avail as the evidence mounted against him tipped the scales of justice against him. He was convicted of insider trading and sentenced accordingly. He appealed, as allowed under all good judicial systems, but again to no avail. His guilt is on the record. However, whether to say "Rene Rifkin is a criminal" is to imply he has a criminal attitude, or to put it another way, is a serial criminal with multiple convictions, or whether it just means that under the law he has been found guilty of a specific criminal act is the fine point on which defamation action may hang.
Personally I don’t hold any position on his moral or civil standing. Nonetheless, he had his day in court and in the case he was tried on was found wanting. On the other hand if I had said "Rene Rifkin is a criminal" while the trial was going on his lawyers could have had a field day with me.
However, if I had have been a member of parliament sitting during a house session or appearing before a senate committee hearing, I could slag Rene or anyone else off to my heart’s content and know that I am protected under the "Parliamentary Privileges" Act, 1987. Now lets turn our attention to the latest "criminal" who has been slandered under this protective mechanism without supporting evidence, Mamdouh Habib.
Here is a man who was arrested while travelling on a bus in a foreign country by that country’s police. He was jailed in that first country then transported to a second country where he was held and ‘allegedly’ tortured. He was then removed by another country’s military and detained on a fourth country’s soil undergoing further ‘alleged’ torture. The third country held him in detention for almost three years then, out of the blue, released him to his home country without charge or even supporting documents to say why they had acted as they had.
No proof. No written allegations. No charge sheet. No record of detention and treatment. No paper trail to link any of the accusations levelled at him to any known facts about the ‘crimes’ he has supposedly been linked with. Nothing! Nada! Ziltch!
Yet Mamdouh Habib has been tried in the court of public opinion and found guilty and one of those who has been his chief judge in all this is Mick Keelty. You may recall him as the Australian Federal Police Chief who dared to agree with the experts and assert what was blindingly obvious. That was, to agree that Australia was now a more vulnerable target for terrorist activity due to our involvement in the Iraq war.
This was Australia’s top cop telling us, on the public record and informed by his own conscience, intellect and no doubt, top level briefings, that the government’s bleatings that we were no more a risk now than then, was not his assessment. Boy, what a spat developed then.
The PM got on his high horse and slammed Keelty. Called him what for as did Downer, Ruddock and all the usual suspects. In fact Downer, in his usual foot in mouth way stated Keelty was "expressing a view which reflects a lot of the propaganda we're getting from al-Qaeda."
It didn’t take long for Keelty to be reminded that if he wanted to continue to enjoy the perks of high office and enjoy a long and prosperous career, he had better do one thing – remember who paid his salary. And I’m not talking about the public purse!
Within a couple of weeks it was clear that he had been pressured to retract and ‘clarify’ his statement, which was at odds with the government’s position and we all recall the wonderful photo opportunity where a rather stiff and awkward looking Keelty accepted the, figuratively speaking, kiss and make-up hug from Johnny.
This occurred less than 12 months ago. A man takes a principled stand and states what he genuinely believed to be the case, as many experts were saying, yet, he chose to cave in to the pressure and became, in my view, nothing more than a toady for the government and an apologist for their propaganda claims.
Which leads us back to Mamdouh Habib and in particular what Mick Keelty had to say about him under the protection of parliamentary privilege earlier on this week. Keelty all but said Habib was a liar, could not be trusted and was into some shady financial machinations. Both Keelty and Denis Richardson, the current head of ASIO, towed the government line so well and had obviously colluded in the tale they wove, as to be unbelievable.
Less that 12 months ago the prime minister and senior government figures were brawling with Keelty and were calling into question his qualification to speak on anything other than "operational matters". Keelty, therefore, knows in a really personal way, what it’s like to have your character called into question, yet he was quite prepared, under the protection of the parliament, to slander and vilify a man whose innocence or guilt is yet to be tested in any court or any judicial system. I would even go so far as to state that if the illegal and fabricated ‘justice’ that is Guantanamo Bay, failed to find anything to charge or hold Habib on, then there would probably be no court on earth that could convict him of anything more than having a bad moustache day.
What we are seeing in the unfolding of the Habib case is the fragility of ideology. At one level ideologies are powerful constructs. After all it is they that drive people to war … and peace. Ideologies have shaped our social and economic systems. They determine our personal and collective outlook on religions, sexual practices, ethnic groups and the environment. Yes, ideologies are powerful but they are also fragile and need to be protected. One of the things that protects the dominant ideologies in our country is the legal system. However, from time to time, something slips through the cracks. Habib and his expulsion by the US and banishment to the antipodes is such a ‘something’ and what we have seen for the last couple of weeks are the ideologically driven attempts by the ‘system’, which includes all those who support and work within it, to patch up the crack.
If we recall the Rifkin incident, we find that many high fliers were supporting him. Media heavy weights defended his reputation. Politicians refused to be drawn and defended the legal right of Rifkin to put his case before the court. They spruiked the benefits of the legal system and the justice it would, ‘naturally’, deal out. Not so with Habib.
Here is a man who speaks with an accent. Is married to a woman who wears scarves. Has a huge family (something Howard says we all should have). Practices a religion that is currently being accused of creating everything from AIDs to cancer and, above all, got paid to tell his story on TV. Well excuse me. If I had been out of work for three years, detained illegally, tortured and slandered all over the media, I just might be tempted to take the money.
What we have here is a clear example of the ‘system’ being tested and the response, in the old fashioned way, is to circle the wagons, write a script and get everyone to ‘sing from the same hymn sheet’. The message the system needs to repeat ad nauseam is, "Habib bad, government good", no matter how ridiculous, cynical and depraved these claims may be.
The Habib case is not over. Just like the Cornelia Rau case, the government and the system must defend the illusion that has been created. An illusion based on an ideology of power, greed and personal aggrandisement. In this ideology there can be no greater threat than the truth and the truth is that Mamdouh Habib and Cornelia Rau are the real victims here, not the government ministers and their flunkeys like Keelty.
Rifkin is a criminal because he was tried and found wanting over a specific matter. He was sentenced (and don’t get me started on his serving that sentence) and ‘did’ the time. Habib, like Rifkin should be afforded the presumption of innocence and as he stated on 60 Minutes the other night, will reveal all when his claims and the government’s assertions are tested in the courts of law. The real test for the government is to now produce the evidence to back up their claims and as we have seen over the last few days the evidence that is emerging about what Australian officials knew or witnessed does not support the government’s stance at all.
My closing thought is to remind you that nothing really happens by accident once the right conditions are placed in motion. Habib, it has been asserted, was arrested by accident, but once he had become part of the system, his role could no longer be determined by him. If it could happen to a one time taxi driver from suburban Sydney, it could, but I hope never, happen to you.