NSW MP Shaoquett Moselmane wants investigation after police raided his home
The leak was deliberate, calculated, and undertaken by those responsible to cause Shaoquett Moselmane humiliation but it also appeared to bring the administration of justice into disrepute.
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Exclusive: Lawyers for NSW MP Shaoquett Moselmane have demanded an investigation be launched into whether the Australian Federal Police, spy agency ASIO, or the office of Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton deliberately tipped off the media ahead of police raids on the politician’s home.
The Australian Commission for Law Enforcement Integrity, the Federal Law Enforcement Ombudsman and the AFP professional standards have been asked to hunt down the person who revealed the sensitive police operational details – as well as Mr Moselmane’s address.
Letters from Sydney law firm, Prominent Lawyers, claimed the media was outside Mr Moselmane’s home in Rockdale before the AFP entered his home, and the tip-off could only have “come from a member of the government or someone employed by the government.“
In the requests to the watchdog agencies, the letters said the attendance of the media – including a journalist from Melbourne – “smacked of tactics that resulted in a gross and fundamental breach of privacy” for Mr Moselmane and his family.
“The invasion of his privacy was deliberate, calculated, and undertaken by those responsible to cause him humiliation … resulting in him being “held up to hatred ridicule, and contempt in the frenzied and frenetic attack on him as a result of their advance notice of his premises being searched.”
“ … It had the added aggravated feature of bringing the administration of justice into disrepute, the letters said.”
Mr Moselmane’s home and office were raided by AFP officers in the early hours of June 26. The warrant for those raids was only signed at 10pm the night before.
Mr Moselmane said he was told during the raid he was not a suspect or a target yet “his home was made to look like “the epicentre of an international espionage ring”.
He said media vision of the raid showed suspicious big black bags being taken in and out of his home which were actually bags of fast food including hamburgers and subway sandwiches for the officers searching his home.
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The raids on Mr Moselmane’s home and parliamentary office is part of an unprecedented investigation into foreign interference in Australian politics.
The home and business of Mr Moselmane’s part-time staffer John Zhang were also raided as authorities investigate whether agents of the Chinese government attempted to influence the Labor politician or others in his office.
The warrant said there were reasonable grounds for suspecting that Mr Zhang and others acted on behalf of the Chinese State and party apparatuses through a social media chat group, but had concealed it from Mr Moselmane.
Mr Zhang is challenging the validity of the warrants in the High Court.
Letters from Prominent Lawyers said Mr Moselmane has not been put on notice at any time that he is a suspect, or the subject of any criminal investigations, nor that there are any allegations against him or that he is accused of any offence.
The request for investigation into the leak said the advance briefing of the media meant Mr Moselmane has sustained “enormous public reputational damage” including being stood down from political positions.
The AFP has previously been forced to pay out more than $1.1 million in legal costs and issue a humiliating apology to Seven West media for “unnecessary reputational damage” after a bungled raid over allegations Seven had paid convicted drug smuggler Schapelle Corby for a tell-all interview.
The apology to Channel 7 stated that “neither Seven, nor its employees, offices or lawyers, were ever suspected of a criminal offence, nor were they the subject of any criminal investigation in connection with the Corby matter”. The warrants for those raids were later quashed.
Mr Moselmane said the AFP had denied to him that they were the source of the leak.
The AFP and ASIO have declined to comment saying the investigation is ongoing.
Home Affairs had not responded.