Former politicians and diplomats to back lawyer and whistleblower Bernard Collaery
Former East Timor presidents and prime ministers Xanana Gusmao and Jose Ramos-Horta are to give evidence supporting whistleblower and lawyer Bernard Collaery.
Canberra Star
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Lawyer Bernard Collaery will have East Timor’s founding fathers and former foreign minister Gareth Evans in his camp as his trial inches nearer.
The ACT Supreme Court on Wednesday heard Collaery would have former East Timor presidents and prime ministers Xanana Gusmao and Jose Ramos Horta, and former Australian foreign minister Gareth Evans giving evidence for him at a preliminary hearing.
Collaery is charged with breaches of the Intelligence Services Act by revealing the Australian Secret Intelligence Organisation’s spying operations on East Timor’s cabinet during oil and gas negotiations.
Collaery and his former client — a spy known only as “Witness K” — were charged in June last year.
Collaery has indicated he will fight the charges.
The preliminary hearing at which Mr Gusmao, Mr Ramos Horta and Mr Evans will give evidence, will deal with whether Collaery’s criminal trial will take place in open court.
Justice David Mossop on Wednesday agreed to push back the preliminary hearing, in part so Attorney-General Christian Porter’s legal team could consider whether they would cross-examine Collaery’s star witnesses.
Collaery’s barrister, Christopher Ward SC, opposed Mr Porter’s bid for the preliminary hearing to be pushed back, saying he had been wrong-footed only because “(Collaery’s) evidence was good evidence”.
Collaery’s legal team plan to put into evidence reams of media reports to argue that his criminal trial being open to the public and the media would not compromise national security.
Among the witnesses also slated to give evidence for Collaery at the preliminary hearing are former chief of defence Chris Barrie and former Australian ambassador to the United States and Indonesia John McCarthy.
The matter returns to court in early December.