NT: Joanne Lees ought to be the main suspect in this show trial. There is no body and no weapon to be found and Joanne Lees had a clear and present motive. She knew him, she travelled with him, she was unfaithful to him and she said that she was the last person to see him on the night she was stoned out of her head. So where does Bradley James Murdoch fit in?
Simple, police decided she was the victim and went about making sure someone else did it when all accounts should point to Joanne Lees who was unfaithful to her boyfriend Peter Falconio and stoned off her head on the night she said she had been attacked.
JOANNE Lees would identify Bradley James Murdoch or anyone else who was profiled to fit the crime. She has a very good reason to do so otherwise she would look very guilty indeed.
The 32-year-old wept as she told a jury she believed she would die after her attacker bound her and forced her into his vehicle on a lonely stretch of the Stuart Highway in the Northern Territory in 2001.
No one else was there and this is her story believe it or not. She was quite capable of inventing an attacker and binding her own hands to make it look like there had been an attack but there was and adventure a misadventure. Tears can be manipulated and manufactured. She was entwined in the relationship maybe Peter would not let her out?
If you asked a killer who has no remorse whether someone else did the killing what answer to you think you're going to get?
During a dramatic day of evidence, prosecutor Rex Wild, QC, asked Ms Lees if she got a good view of the man as he held a western-style silver revolver to her head.
[The weapon that can't be found.]
"Yes," she replied.
"Do you see that man here today?" asked Mr Wild, the Northern Territory's Director of Public Prosecutions.
"Yes, I'm looking at him now," she replied in a loud voice, staring directly to where Murdoch sat in the dock of the Northern Territory Supreme Court.
[But she'd never seen him before the trial? And wasn't prompted.]
Murdoch looked back and shook his head.
Ms Lees responded by nodding vigorously.
[Intimating that she was guilty but had no other choice.]
She also appeared to mouth some words as she nodded back at Murdoch, but they were not audible.
[Sorry...I am Sorry...Please forgive me...?]
Ms Lees was giving testimony on the second day of the trial into the alleged murder of her boyfriend, Mr Falconio, who has not been seen since that night in July 2001.
Lees, who was stoned out of her brain on dope and who'd had a recent affair had a better motive for the killing and could easily have committed the crime herself. So why wasn't she the main suspect?
Bradley Murdoch, 47, has pleaded not guilty to murder, and to the unlawful assault and deprivation of liberty of Ms Lees.
Lees has accused Bradley John Murdoch of Peter Falconio death but until the alleged strong DNA evidence appeared late in the police investigation there was probably no case at all.
DNA results that just happened to appear now place Bradley John Murdoch at the crime scene and no doubt have helped the police case against the accused.
Back in April 2005, Murdoch's defence team was furious at the new DNA evidence. Claiming his client had been ambushed by the prosecution, Ian Baker, QC, made an application to have the hearing stopped and the trial date, put back to allow his side to have its own DNA tests done on the cable ties.
Commenting on the new development, the judge, Brian Martin, told the Northern Territory Deputy Director of Public Prosecutions, Tony Elliot: "The evidence you propose to lead, if accepted by the jury, would inevitably place the accused not only at the scene, but having used the ties used to tie up Miss Lees. It is critical." ?
Dr Whitaker's world-first DNA testing technique has allegedly identified fragments of DNA belonging to Murdoch at the crime scene?
But earlier results of tests on mixed DNA on the gearstick and steering wheel were so poor that they were inadmissible in court.
Ms Lees, who said she still bore scars from that night, said a man pulled up beside the couple as they drove their Kombi north from Alice Springs.
But she's the only witness to that and she was also quite capable of making it appear that she had been tied up and grazed.
If it were the case that she was bound then it would have been highly unlikely that she would have survived to tell the story.
Of course a murderer is not capable of making up a story to make it look like she suffered a misadventure by binding here own hands and leaving marks for all to see?
When he signaled for the couple to pull over, Ms Lees said she urged Mr Falconio not to stop.
Sure, where in the middle of nowhere in the dark and she intimates they should stop? A street wise pom? Bullshit!
She said, he did stop, however, and went to the back of the vehicle to talk to the man about sparks he had seen coming from the exhaust.
"Cheers mate, thanks for stopping," she heard Mr Falconio telling the man.
As she was revving the engine for Mr Falconio, she said she heard a bang which sounded like a car backfiring.
Apparantly it wasn't until the stranger appeared at her car window with a silver revolver that she realised the sound may have been a gunshot.
Maybe it was the Lone Ranger?
Ms Lees said she struggled as the gunman bound her hands behind her back, forced her from the Kombi and tried unsuccessfully to tie her legs with tape as he straddled her on the ground.
So he managed to bind her hands but he could not manage to bind her feet, the easy part?
He did not rape her or shoot her in the head but apparently he had no trouble with Peter Falconio?
"He punched me in the right temple, it stunned me," she said.
"I was then screaming for Pete to come and help me."
She said the man led her towards his vehicle and tried unsuccessfully to put tape around her mouth.
She also managed to shake off a canvas sack he put over her head.
He pushed her into the passenger's side of his vehicle and then into its rear tray area.
"I asked him why he was doing this, did he want money, did he want to rape me," Ms Lees said.
"He came back and told me to shut up or he would shoot me."
Asked today what was going through her mind during the attack, Ms Lees wept and said:" I felt alone.
And that just about sums it up because she was alone and has to prove otherwise, surely?
"I kept shouting for Pete. I thought I was going to die."
But the man who had her tied up couldn't find her? Or manage to bind her legs, rape her or even shoot her? But he managed to take care of Peter. Maybe he was gay? Or just plain clumsy?
Then the man moved away from his vehicle and she seized the moment to escape, she said, shuffling her legs over the rear of an unsecured canopy onto the ground with her hands still bound behind her back.
And he could not see her in the middle of nowhere? Neither could he hear her?
"Then I just ran," Ms Lees whispered, recounting how she curled up and hid under bushes.
Ms Lees said she heard the crunch of the man's footsteps as she hid.
"I didn't speak - I was trying not to breathe even," she said.
She heard the man drive a vehicle away, and later again heard the crunch of gravel and the man dragging something.
"I thought it could be Pete," she said.
The court has heard Ms Lees hid under the bush for five hours, before running out onto the road, still bound, and flagged down a passing road train.
And the man ran away with the bone!
The trial continues.
Related:
To avoid further delays in having the murder case heard, Mr Prescott dismissed charges against Murdoch regarding firearms offences that were currently before the Adelaide court.
Bradley John Murdoch will face a court in Darwin tomorrow, charged for the first time over the murder of British tourist Peter Falconio.
An Adelaide magistrate today ordered Murdoch, 45, to be extradited to the Northern Territory where he will be formally charged with murdering Mr Falconio and attempting to abduct Mr Falconio's girlfriend, Joanne Lees.
Murdoch's extradition follows his acquittal earlier this week on unrelated sex charges and his immediate rearrest.
Handcuffed and flanked by prison officers and Adelaide Magistrates Court staff, Murdoch showed no expression as Chief Magistrate Kelvyn Prescott dismissed arguments that his arrest was unlawful.
Peaceful Civil Disobedience
The new Sedition Laws in the anti-terror bills clearly target people who call for acts of non-violent civil disobedience. Under the laws there is no defence for calling for change to any law by anything other than lawful means. Penalty is up to seven years jail.
In an extremely dangerous development for free speech that is yet to be picked up by the mainstream press, the new anti-terror bills clearly outlaw calls for non-violent civil disobedience.
The changes to the Sedition Act which are Part of Schedule 7 of the draft laws (p75) outline the following
"In this section:
seditious intention means an intention to effect any of the following purposes:
(a) to bring the Sovereign into hatred or contempt;
(b) to urge disaffection against the following:
(i) the Constitution;
(ii) the Government of the Commonwealth;
(iii) either House of the Parliament;
(c) to urge another person to attempt, otherwise than by lawful means, to procure a change to any matter established by law in the Commonwealth;
(d) to promote feelings of ill-will or hostility between different groups so as to threaten the peace, order and good government of the Commonwealth.
I draw your attention to section c) which clearly targets not just peaceful civil disobedience but anyone who calls for civil disobedience. By definition the civil disobidence is involves the attempt to change a law through non-lawful means. So shortly when you put up a post on Indymedia calling for blockading in Gippsland, being part of a non-legally sanctioned picket, a sit in against uranium mining etc you could face 7 years gaol.
But wait you say - the government says that it is offering an "acting in good faith" defence against sedition charges. Read on:
(p79 of law)
80.3 Defence for Acts done in Good Faith
(1) Sections 80.1 and 80.2 do not apply to a person who:
(c) urges in good faith another person to attempt to lawfully procure a change to any matter established by law in the Commonwealth, a State, a Territory or another country;
Note the law specifically only offers a defence to people who act in good faith to urge others LAWFULLY procure a change to the law. So the law on sedition specifically offers no defence to those who call for changes to law to happen outside the law ie this obviously includes peaceful non-violent civil disobedience.
So the new sedition law makes it a serious criminal offence to even call for an act of peaceful civil disobedience.
The sedition law also only offers a defence to those involved in union actions if
"e) does anything in good faith in connection with an industrial dispute or an industrial matter."
What the hell does this mean. Who decides what industrial actions "are in good faith". Its totally open to interpretation of the courts who we know can sometimes come down very hard on militant union action. So now calling for a picket if it is outside the ever narrowing legal framework of legal disputes will be a crime facing up to seven years gaol.
The mainstream press are not even covering this aspect of the laws - but the deportation of a U.S. activist Scott Parkin who was calling for you guessed it - peaceful non-violent civil disobedience as a "national security threat" shows who the government are gunning for.
These Sedition Laws are a drastic attack on free speech and are worthy of a fascist police state. I defy someone to explain to me how these aspects of the Sedition Laws can be justified as part of the so-called "War on Terror". How will these changes to the sedition laws make us safer? Rather it is obvious that these laws are designed to give the state the power it desires to crush dissent.
I call on everyone to read the laws for themselves as there is some really scary stuff in them and hope to see you at the rally on Saturday October 22nd State Parliament 1 PM.
