| deaths in custody news |
| RIGHTS-AUSTRALIA: Aboriginal's Death in Custody Case - No Justice? 1 December - IPS - Although supporters have expressed satisfaction with the six year jail term handed down recently to Lex Wotton for his role in the 2004 Palm Island riot -- sparked by the death in police custody of aboriginal man Cameron Doomadgee -- they say that justice has yet to be served. |
| No more Aboriginal deaths in custody! 1 December 2008 -The recent conviction and sentencing of Aboriginal man Lex Wotton has brought back into public discussion the shameful continuing suffering — and death — of Australia’s Indigenous people at the hands of the law. |
Race relations take a hit after Wotton verdict: Yanner |
Australia's persistent racism - One Aboriginal leader compares it to Biko's murder in South Africa |
| Policeman admits lying during Hurley investigation 13 October 2008 - A policeman at the trial of alleged Palm Island rioter Lex Wotton has admitted he lied during an investigation involving Senior Sergeant Chris Hurley. |
| ABC in legal bid for evidence into death of Doomadgee 5 September 2008 - THE ABC has launched its legal campaign to overturn non-publication orders on evidence given in a coronial inquest into the 2004 death in custody of Mulrunji Doomadgee on Palm Island. |
| ABC challenges Palm Island death secrets 27 August 2008 - Secret evidence in the case of the death of an Aboriginal man in custody in North Queensland may be released to the public if legal action taken by the ABC is successful. |
| Police to sit on Hurley findings from Palm Island 12 August 2008 - QUEENSLAND police are considering withholding the findings of two internal investigations into the handling of the death in custody four years ago of Mulrunji Doomadgee on the grounds they could affect the deliberations of two court cases. |
| Unfinished Business -
Mulrunji’s death and the need for reform 29 July 2008 - On one steamy northern morning in November 2004, a man known in death as Mulrunji was walking, drunk, along a suburban street on Queensland’s Palm Island. He saw the island’s highest-ranking policeman, Senior Sergeant Chris Hurley, arrest another indigenous man. |
| Palm riot lawyer seeks law change 19 July 2008 - LAWYERS for the alleged ringleader of the 2004 riots on Palm Island, which were sparked by an Aboriginal death in custody, have launched an extraordinary campaign to change the laws and reduce the maximum sentences for those involved. |
| The Tall Man 18 July 2008 - An award-winning magazine article on an Aboriginal death in custody has been turned into a compelling book. |
| Palm death cop Chris Hurley got $100,000 payout 28 May 2008 - CHRIS Hurley - the policeman acquitted of manslaughter over a Palm Island death in custody, only to face a civil claim from the victim's family - received a confidential $100,000 payment from the Queensland Government after the incident. |
| Home truths hit hard for Bentleigh ABC broadcaster 21 May 08 - WHEN ABC journalist Jeff Waters was told to cover the riots on Palm Island in 2004 he had not expected to be confronted with the same attitudes he had seen as a young man growing up in Queensland. |
| Gone for a Song -
Death in Custody on Palm Island 12 May 2008 - Media Release - A new book, written by a journalist who closely followed the story of the death in custody of Mulrunji on Palm Island in 2004, is calling for the full release of compelling evidence which is still being kept secret. |
Fast track for long-term detainees |
| Mourners farewell Aboriginal elder 29 February 2008 - More than 1500 people attended the funeral today of a Warburton community elder who died after a routine prisoner transport journey from Laverton to Kalgoorlie last month. |
| Elder's funeral comes as a relief 28 February 2008 - The relatives of Aboriginal elder Ian Ward who collapsed in the back of a security van while being transported from Laverton to Kalgoorlie are relieved he will finally be laid to rest, but are awaiting a forensic pathology report which will determine how the tragedy occurred. |
Legal group raises more questions over prison van death |
WA unveils prisoner transport changes |
| Torture claims over Aboriginal custody death 14 February 2008 - In Western Australia, the Deaths in Custody Watch Committee has accused police of putting the leader of an Indigenous community in conditions akin to torture. The former Warburton elder, Ian Ward, collapsed and died in the back of a prisoner transport van last month, while the temperature outside was 43 degrees. The Government had been warned that its prisoner transport vans were below standard, with frequent breakdowns in the air conditioning systems. At a meeting in Perth last night, the Deaths in Custody Watch Committee vowed to campaign for an immediate end to the use of the vehicles. |
| Too many in jail for drive crime: Bowler 11 February 2008 - The death of Aboriginal elder Ian Ward in the back of a prison transport van highlights the unacceptable number of Aboriginal people imprisoned for driving offences, says Murchison-Eyre MLA John Bowler. |
| Another death in custody: protest called 8 February 2008 - The Western Australian Deaths in Custody Watch Committee (DCWC) has called an urgent public meeting for February 13 to plan a campaign to demand justice for an Aboriginal elder who died on January 27 in the custody of Global Solutions Ltd (GSL), which is contracted by the state government to transport prisoners. |
| Van death victim's family hires lawyer 4 February 2008 - The family of the Western Australia goldfields man who died while being transported in a prison van has engaged a lawyer to represent it during the investigation into his death. |
| Silence on cause of elder's death in custody van 1 February 2008 - Police yesterday refused to reveal the results of a post-mortem examination on the body of an Aboriginal elder who died after he collapsed in custody while being taken to Kalgoorlie in the back of a van. |
| Death of Indigenous man while in custody is a tragedy 31 January 2008 - Media Release - Amnesty International is shocked at the death of an Indigenous man over the weekend whilst allegedly in the custody of contractors for the Department of Corrective Services, which is a tragedy for his family and his community. |
| Death in custody guard told of 'bloody hot' van 31 January 2008 - A GUARD sobbed as she told a hospital doctor it was "bloody hot" in the back of the van in which Aboriginal leader Ian Ward was locked for up to 4½ hours before he collapsed, vomited and died on the weekend. |
Death may have been preventable: Watch Committee |
Drink driver dies in custody |
| Mulrunji family to launch civil case 2 July 2007 - The Queensland government will vigorously defend civil action brought by the family of Mulrunji Doomadgee, who died in police custody on Palm Island almost three years ago, Premier Peter Beattie says. |
| Another black stain 21 June 2007 - An Aboriginal man dies in custody of internal injuries. His son and cellmate commit suicide. The arresting officer walks free. |
| For this disgrace, we all bear shame 21 June 2007 - THE sense of powerlessness enveloped indigenous Australians again yesterday - this time the friends and family of Mulrunji Doomadgee. |
Hurley verdict a travesty for Aboriginal people |
| Cop in Rare Trial for Custodial Death of Aborigine 20 June - IPS Italy - For the first time in decades an Australian policeman is facing trial on charges of manslaughter and assault in relation to the death of an aboriginal man while in custody. |
| Police officer faces court over Mulrunji’s death 15 June 2007 - On June 12, the trial of Queensland police officer Chris Hurley on charges of assault and manslaughter began. Hurley is alleged to have punched and then unlawfully killed Aboriginal man Mulrunji on November 19, 2004, on Palm Island, an Indigenous community located near Townsville. |
| 'Excessive force used' in custody death 12 June 2007 - The trial of a Queensland policeman charged with the manslaughter of a Palm Island man in 2004 started in Townsville today with the prosecutor claiming that excessive force from the officer, probably using his knee, almost split the victim's liver. |
| Black supporters to wear Mulrinji wristbands at Hurley trial 7 June 2007 - Socialist Alliance Media Release - Hundreds of Aborigines and community supporters will wear bright yellow wristbands to the Townsville court next Tuesday when they gather to observe the trial of Senior Sergeant Chris Hurley who has been charged with the manslaughter and assault of Mulrunji Doomadgee in 2004 in the Palm Island watchhouse. |
A change that was as good as a holiday |
| Death in custody charges laid 5 February 2007 - A GRIM-faced Chris Hurley appeared before the Supreme Court in Brisbane today after being charged over the Palm Island death in custody. |
| Union urges watch-house upgrades amidst Mulrunji row 31 January 2007 - The Queensland Police Union says the Southport watch-house on the Gold Coast is dangerously overcrowded and it has called on the State Government to upgrade facilities. |
| Descendance Palm Island Australia Day 2007 28 January 2007 - Descendance Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Dance Company were invited to Palm Island North Queensland by Bwgcolman Future, to work with the community, present workshops for the children, and perform with them on Australia Day, this was certainly an honor and experience we will never forget. |
| Police union urged to 'calm down' over Mulrunji decision 28 January 2007 - A former mayor of Palm Island has labelled the Queensland Police Union (QPU) "childish" for suggesting officers be pulled out of some of the state's Indigenous communities. |
| Palm cop to face charges 27 January 2007 - THE policeman at the centre of the Palm Island death in custody case will face a manslaughter trial after an unprecedented review by a former NSW chief justice contradicted the Queensland Director of Public Prosecutions' decision not to lay charges. |
| Charges welcomed over Palm Island death in custody 26 January 2007 - The decision by the Queensland Attorney-General to lay manslaughter charges over the death of Palm Island man, Mulrunji Doomadgee would help restore public confidence in Queensland’s legal system but not its police force, Australians for Native Title and Reconciliation (ANTaR) said today. |
| Life and death on the island of despair 20 January 2007 - Many residents of Palm Island live with a permanent sense of brutality and abandonment, writes Malcolm Brown. Alcoholism and suicide are the tragic results. |
| Police accused of threats to Doomadgee witness 18 January 2007 - Patrick Bramwell, who hanged himself on Palm Island on Monday night, had been under police pressure not to talk about what he witnessed the night another Aboriginal man, Mulrunji Doomadgee, died in 2004, his supporters say. |
| Indigenous anger at ongoing injustice 13 January 2007 - Last September, Queensland’s acting state coroner Christine Clements ruled that Senior Sergeant Christopher Hurley, a police officer working on the Palm Island Aboriginal community, had caused the death of Aboriginal man Mulrunji while in his custody |
| Mundine warns of civil disobedience 12 January 2007 - FEDERAL Labor Party president Warren Mundine has warned that Aboriginal workers may not turn up to work and children may skip school as part of a civil disobedience campaign similar to the one against apartheid. |
| A personal plea by Dr Louis Peachey January 2007 - I am most concerned about the recent decision by the DPP not to press charges against the Police officer who was named by the Deputy Coroner Christine Clements as the person causing the death of Mulrunji Doomadgee. |
| Top jurist for Palm case 5 January 2007 - THE Beattie Government yesterday bowed to pressure to appoint an interstate jurist to investigate the Palm Island death in custody, selecting one of the nation's most eminent legal minds to review the decision not to charge a policeman over the death of Mulrunji Doomadgee. |
| PM stirs debate 31 December 2006 - Prime Minister John Howard has stirred up the Palm Island death-in-custody debate by suggesting someone from outside Queensland reviews the findings. |
| Palm Island's uneasy peace 30 December 2006 - Hunched on a red plastic chair with his arms tightly folded, Peter Beattie grew more and more stony-faced. For more than an hour he had to sit there under a mango tree overlooking the dusty concrete which passes for Palm Island's town square and cop abuse for his Government's handling of the death of Mulrunji Doomadgee in police custody. |
| Legacy of racist past 30 December 2006 - PETER Beattie accompanied his wife Heather to Pormpuraaw Aboriginal community, south of Weipa on western Cape York, six years ago. Old women hugged his wife and cried. She danced in a corroboree staged in her honour because she was coming home, and these were the women who had nursed her and her two sisters as young children. |
| Palm Island conflict from bad to worse 28 December 2006 - Retired District Court chief judge Pat Shanahan had no choice but to step down from the ill-conceived inquiry into the decision-making process of the Queensland DPP in relation to the death in custody of Palm Island man Mulrunji Doomadgee. |
| The Aboriginal Medical Service Redfern Condemns Premier Peter Beattie, the Queensland Director of Public Prosecutions and the Australian Labor Party 26 December 2006 - The Aboriginal Medical Service Redfern, Australia’s first community-controlled Aboriginal health service, today issued a strong condemnation of Queensland Premier Peter Beattie and the Queensland Director of Public Prosecutions over the whitewash in relation to the death in Queensland Police custody of Palm Islander Mulrunji Cameron Doomadgee. |
| Ex-judge in Palm death case review helped pick DPP 26 December 2006 - The former judge chosen by the Beattie Government to review a decision by the state's top prosecutor not to lay charges in the Palm Island death-in- custody case has become embroiled in a conflict-of-interest dispute after it emerged he voted to appoint Leanne Clare as Director of Public Prosecutions. |
| Coroner 'mistaken' on doomadgee death finding 23 December 2006 - An apparent incorrect finding by acting Queensland Coroner Christine Clements at the inquest into the death in custody of Mulrunji Doomadgee made the laying of charges against the police officer who arrested him almost impossible. |
| DPP's stance an act of war says Mundine 22 December 2006 - Indigenous leader Warren Mundine last night accused Queensland's Director of Public Prosecutions Leanne Clare of declaring "war on Aboriginal people" after she defiantly ruled out any review of her decision not to lay charges over the death in custody of Mulrunji Doomadgee. |
| “Supreme Court review of DPP’s decision not to prosecute” 20 December 2006 - Preliminary advice received from a team of lawyers headed by Bret Walker SC from the NSW Bar suggests that the Queensland DPP’s decision not to prosecute is reviewable under the Judicial Review Act. An application for review to the Supreme Court of Queensland is expected to be filed shortly. |
| Marchers condemn 'apartheid' 20 December 2006 - WAVES of anger rippled through Brisbane city yesterday as 1000 protesters proclaimed justice in the Palm Island death-in-custody case had not been done. |
| 'White justice' ruling puts heat on Beattie 16 December 2006 - National tensions over indigenous justice erupted yesterday as the Howard Government and Aboriginal leaders demanded an independent review of the decision not to charge a police officer over a death in custody. Justice remains elusive over Palm Island death in custody ANTaR media release |
| Greens seek inquiry into Doomadgee death 16 December 2006 - Greens leader Bob Brown says he'll ask the federal government to back a royal commission into the death of Aboriginal man Mulrunji Doomadgee on Queensland's Palm Island. |
| Hurley not to face criminal charges 16 December 2006 - Senior Sergeant Christopher Hurley would not face any criminal charges over the death of Cameron Doomadgee on Palm Island, Queensland Director of Public Prosecutions Leanne Clare, SC, announced in Townsville today. |
| Bloody disgrace: saga is state's worst injustice 15 December 2006 - THE question giving most discomfort to the Queensland Government following the violent cell death of Mulrunji Doomadgee two years ago is a simple one. |
| Cop let off after assault on Aborigine 6 December 2006 - A Queensland police officer found to have punched a mentally handicapped, partially blind and deaf Aboriginal man so hard his eye was swollen shut was not charged because the state's corruption watchdog considered it unlikely he would be convicted. |
| Andrew
Boe: Shame of palming off report 6 October 2006 - The political response to a judicial inquiry is out of orderQueensland's acting coroner Christine Clements last week published findings concerning the death of Mulrunji Doomadgee in Palm Island. He was found dead in a police cell in November 2004, less than an hour after being arrested for swearing as he was walking home. Clements found that Chris Hurley, a senior sergeant, angrily punched him several times while he was on the floor and that these actions "caused the fatal injuries". |
| Political inaction endorses brute force 30 September 2006 - CHRISTINE CLEMENTS is a wife and mother. She used to be a legal aid lawyer in Queensland country towns. In December 2000 the Beattie Labor Government appointed her as one of the state's first woman magistrates. Its then chief magistrate, the outspoken Di Fingleton, whose independence would, unspeakably, send her to jail until exonerated by the High Court and her legal career restored, would later make Clements the Brisbane coroner. |
| Finding
of Inquest into the Death of Mulrunji Doomadgee (PDF) 27 September 2006 - Death in Police Custody of Mulrunji Doomadgee Queensland Coroner Report |
| Police
didn't mean to deceive Mulrunji partner, inquest told 5 August 2006 - A coronial inquest into the death in custody of a Palm Island man in north Queensland has heard the arresting officer did not mean to deceive the man's de facto partner when she asked about him a short time after he had died. |
| Island
of lost souls 23 July 2006 - (The Observer UK) - It is already the most dangerous place in the world outside a conflict zone, but the death of a man in custody has pushed Australia's Palm Island to breaking point. |
| Mulrunji's
son found dead ahead of Palm Is hearings 31 July 2006 - An 18-year-old man has hanged himself just two days before a coroner resumes hearings into his father's death in custody on Palm Island in north Queensland. |
| Island of distress 29 March 2005 - MULRUNJIE (Cameron) Doomadgee, 36, bled to death in a police cell on Palm Island after an incident that left him with four broken ribs and a crushed liver. |
| Govt will ignore UN predicts ANTaR 4 March 2005 - Key Indigenous lobbyists predicted the Australian government will ignore UN concerns over abuses of Aboriginals expected to be raised yesterday in the European headquarters of the human rights watchdog. The United Nation’s Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination in Geneva is considering submissions in front of senior officials from four government departments over Sydney's Redfern riots and the death in custody of a man on Palm Island, off north Queensland, last year. |
| Senior officials to front UN committee 1 March 2005 - Senior government officials due to front the UN in Geneva tomorrow are likely to be quizzed over Sydney's Redfern riots and the death in custody of a Palm Islander. |
Victim
cried for help as policeman beat him, says witness |
| Bribe row overshadows Palm inquest 25 February 2005 - A bribery scandal is threatening to overshadow a long-awaited investigation into the death of an Aboriginal man in custody on Palm Island off Queensland. |
Death in custody video evidence |
| Film stars send their sympathy 12 January 2005 - International celebrities Brad Pitt, Steven Segal, Tina Turner, Whoopi Goldberg and Jean Claude Van Damme have sent their condolences to the Palm Island family of Cameron Doomadgee, who died in police custody. The condolences were made through Jane Doomadgee, a sister of Mr Doomadgee. National protest marches followed the death, and subsequent events have received international coverage around the globe, including on CNN. |
| Queensland racial abuse claims resurface 5 January 2005 - More claims of racial abuse have emerged in far north Queensland following the arrest of one of the accused Palm Island rioters yesterday. |
| Grinch steals Christmas from Palm Island community 24 December 2004 - At a time when Queensland Police Commissioner Bob Atkinson was inviting the community to join the Queensland Police Service in celebrating the "festive season in song" at the Suncorp Piazza in South Bank, Brisbane. The Palm Island community is not celebrating this festive season. |
| Uneasy calm at aborigine funeral 11 December 2004 - (BBC UK) - The funeral has taken place of an aboriginal man in northern Australia whose death last month in police custody sparked violent disturbances. |
Australia set for Aborigine march |
| Aborigines' dark island home 4 December 2004 - Aboriginal residents of Palm Island in northern Australia are preparing for another depressing chapter in the story of their isolated home. The funeral of Cameron Doomagee is expected to take place in the coming days. |
| Aboriginal death in custody triggers palm island riot 3 December 2004 - For the second time this year, anger over the death of an Australian Aborigine in highly suspicious circumstances involving police has boiled over into a riot. |
| Aborigine's dark island home 4 December 2004 - Aboriginal residents of Palm Island in northern Australia are preparing for another depressing chapter in the story of their isolated home. |
| Anger reaches boiling point after palm Island death in custody 27 November 2004 - PALM ISLAND: Two police officers have been transferred off Palm Island in north Queensland as community anger threatens to boil over in the wake of the death of an Aboriginal man in custody. |
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