Consular assistance, Julian Assange?

 24th June 2022

 

Foreign Minister Penny Wong 

Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles

Parliament House, Canberra

 

Dear Ms Wong and Mr. Marles

 

You claim that Julian Assange is receiving 'consular assistance'. Could you please explain to the Australian media and public just what 'consular assistance' means, in terms of services delivered to Australian citizens in jails overseas? 

 

In my own case, when jailed in Cambodia for fifteen months on charges of spying, 'consular assistance' amounted to the provision of (1) a toothbrush and a paperback book, (2) Weeks and months old local Cambodian newspapers, and (3) Mail from Australia. That's it. 

 

Despite the Australian embassy in Cambodia declaring in public that it was 'monitoring' my case, Embassy staff did not turn up to my court appearances to 'monitor' the numerous ways in which both Cambodian and international law were being breached. If the Ambassador had asked just one question, "Was there a warrant for Mr Ricketson's arrest?'  the Court would have had to say 'no' and I would have had to be released almost immediately.

 

Whilst in Pre Sar prison, a fellow Australian, Giuseppe Nicolosi (Zippy) became very ill, just months before he was due to be released, having almost completed his sentence. There was no more evidence that Zippy was guilty of a crime than there was  in my own case.  As Zippy's health deteriorated , I and other prisoners asked the Australian Embassy to advocate Zippy's early release (by only a few months) so that he could receive the treatment he required in an intensive care ward in Australia. The Australian embassy, providing Zippy with 'consular assistance', monitoring his health, declined to intervene. Zippy died.

This is how much DFAT cares about Australian citizens in trouble overseas - unless, of course, the media has taken an interest in them and, as a consequence, the public places the government under pressure to act.

 

As for the proposition that Australia can't intervene in the case of Julian Assange, this is simply not true, and you both know it. The Australian government intervenes all the time, when it feels inclined to do so. It did with Peter Greste, Kylie Moore-Gilbert and myself - all three of us in jail on clearly false espionage charges. Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull's email to a friend of mine speaks for itself:

 

wentworthelectorateoffice@gmail.com

Date: 25 September 2018 at 9:02:09 am AEST, xxx@hotmail.com, Subject: Re: In Response to Your Letter, Thank you xxx for your letter, I guess you know now that at the ASEAN Australia Summit in Sydney earlier this year I secured a commitment from the Cambodian PM to pardon James once his trial was concluded. So thats why he is home. 

Regards, malcolm”, 

 

The many thousands of us who voted for Labor, believing Anthony Albanese to be a man of his word, hope that you are, in fact, hard at work behind the scenes, doing all you can to secure Julian's release. You will be aware, of course, if you do not succeed with 'quiet diplomacy', and if you do not then publicly demand Julian's release, that you will be complicit in his inevitable death in a prison in the United States.

Regardless of whatever a Labor government might achieve in its first term, Julian's death will hang like an albatross around your necks. You will have lost the respect, and earned the enmity, of hundreds of thousands of Australians who are under no illusions about your being able to pick up the phone and stop this travesty of justice.

 

yours sincerely

 

James Ricketson