Gripping new podcast starts today
Three seconds. Three gunshots. One explosive murder trial. As a cop faces life in jail for killing a young Indigenous man, new podcast Yuendumu: The Trial brings you daily insights.
RACE, violence, justice and two young men’s lives: these are the explosive elements that will make the murder trial of policeman Zachary Rolfe the most significant court case of the year.
Today The Australian premieres a new podcast — Yuendumu: The Trial — providing daily news, analysis and insights as a Darwin Court decides whether to imprison Rolfe for life.
Rolfe shot dead a young Aboriginal man, Kumanjayi Walker, during a 2019 arrest for assaulting police and breach of parole.
Walker, who had already threatened police with a machete, attacked Rolfe and his partner with scissors; Rolfe pulled his Glock and fired three shots in a matter of seconds and Walker died.
Four days later Rolfe was charged with murder, in the shadow of the global Black Lives Matter movement and against a backdrop of deeply entrenched intergenerational disadvantage in Yuendumu, one of Australia’s most famous remote communities.
Co-hosted by investigative journalist Kristin Shorten and Sky News’ Matt Cunningham, with special guest appearances by The Australian’s Northern Correspondent Amos Aikman and produced by multimedia editor Lia Tsamoglou, the podcast will begin with a two-part scene-setter on Monday 9 August and Monday 16 August, before the trial commences on Wednesday August 18, with an estimated duration of three to four weeks before the jury retires to consider its verdict.
A new episode will be available every morning, wherever you get your podcasts.
For the first week of trial the podcast will be available in The Australian’s mobile app and free on all platforms, including Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Google Play.
From Thursday August 26, the podcast will be exclusively available to The Australian’s subscribers via our app and website.
Subscribers will also have access to our unrivalled coverage of the trial and its ramifications, including Aikman’s up-to-the-minute reports from inside the Supreme Court in Darwin.
We will take audiences from the courtroom to the outback, with special reports from Yuendumu and gripping multimedia packages, plus expert post-trial analysis and reaction from the families and supporters of both young men.
We will explore the verdict’s impacts on remote communities, tactical policing, remote emergency medicine, politics and race relations in Australia, putting the shooting and its aftermath in context for a global audience.
The stakes are high: Rolfe faces a mandatory sentence of life imprisonment with a 20-year minimum term behind bars if convicted of murder.
Rolfe faces two alternative charges: manslaughter and violent conduct causing death.
Manslaughter in the NT carries a maximum sentence of life imprisonment but no mandatory minimum sentence. The other charge, violent conduct causing death, carries a maximum sentence of 16 years but no mandatory minimum.
Follow our coverage: https://www.theaustralian.com.au/yuendumu
Listen to Yuendumu: The Trial wherever you get your podcasts.
In The Australian app: go to Podcasts, tap on Yuendumu: The Trial and tap Follow
Download the app via: Apple App Store | Google Play Store
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