Bali Nine execution fallout: Barrister Bob Myers says AFP ‘has blood on its hands’

HE tipped off the Australian Federal Police about the Bali Nine’s plans to smuggle drugs from Indonesia. But he never expected it to end like this.

THE barrister who tipped off the Australian Federal Police about the Bali Nine’s plans in an effort to prevent a family friend from committing a crime, says the authority has blood on its hands.

Bob Myers alerted the AFP about a possible drug smuggling operation more than a decade ago, after he was contacted by his good friend and the worried father of teenager Scott Rush.

Australian Scott Rush (L) inside the prison in Karangasem, Bali during Scott's birthday, 3 December 2014.

He says he asked for Rush, one of the Bali Nine, to be stopped in time, but the AFP took a different direction. Instead they used the information to alert their Indonesian counterparts.

That choice, he says, has led to the deaths of Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran this morning, executed by an Indonesian firing squad during the early hours.

Rush, for his part, is still in an Indonesian jail along with other members of the smuggling ring.

Mr Myers has said the AFP had enough information and evidence to detain all of the co-conspirators at Sydney Airport, at the time of their departure, and to charge them with conspiracy to commit an offence.

Instead, they let them fly to a country where the penalty for their crime was death.

“The fact is they should have never even been there,” Mr Myers told news.com.au shortly after it was confirmed the pair had been shot dead.

“The AFP knew it had to be an inevitable outcome, they knew one or more of the people they let leave Australia for the purpose of what they knew would be to smuggle drugs back into Australia (could be executed).

Agony ... Brintha Sukumaran breaks down as she arrives at Nusakambangan Port to visit her brother. Pic: Adam Taylor

“One can’t say if their lives would have definitely been spared, but for a government to approach another government and to find out that they had been let down so badly by their own public servants who knew well that Australians in those circumstances ... I know it has been said that they didn’t act illegally, I guess there’s no law that says you can’t do it, but when you don’t subscribe to the death penalty you just can’t deliberately expose your own citizens to it.

“I will never stop that campaign. The reasons these fellows have died is because of some deliberate act, a cavalier approach by the AFP.

“We don’t know what individuals took the decision but I think it was at a very, very low level without any consideration.”

Former diplomat Bruce Haigh has called for the AFP to be investigated.

Writing for news.com.au former diplomat and political commentator Bruce Haigh called for the AFP to be investigated over its role in “these executions”.

Mr Myers agrees those involved should be scrutinised.

“I do believe they should be investigated,” Mr Myer said.

“They knew exactly what the consequences would be.

“If they hadn’t have done it there wouldn’t be seven Australians remaining in an Indonesian jail for long periods of incarceration, and of course, there wouldn’t be two dead men.”