via CAAI news Media
SELMA MILOVANOVIC
February 1, 2010
Khmer Rouge victim David Wilson
A MARATHON inquest into the death of Melbourne tourist David Wilson, kidnapped and murdered in Cambodia 15 years ago, is set to resume this year now that a top-secret file on the case has been handed to the Victorian Coroner's Court after a 10-year delay.
The Department of Foreign Affairs file is believed to contain up to 600 reports and cables, including details of negotiations with kidnappers led by Cambodian officials before Mr Wilson was murdered.
The Wilson family believes the cables - if revealed to the coroner in full - may show that the Keating government knew the Cambodians would bombard the mountain where the hostages were being held but did nothing to try to delay the attack until negotiations for the handover of hostages were completed.
Mr Wilson, 29, along with Briton Mark Slater and Frenchman Jean-Michel Braquet, was kidnapped from a train in July 1994 and murdered by the Khmer Rouge in a remote Cambodian jungle camp in September that year.
The Federal Government refused to pay a ransom of $50,000 in gold demanded by the kidnappers, in line with its policy that such an action would expose other Australians abroad to kidnapping.
It refused to help Peter Wilson bring money to Cambodia to rescue his son on the same grounds, but effectively turned a blind eye to the Cambodian Government's attempts to arrange a ransom payment.
Questions are also being raised about why an audacious plan by prominent businessman and Liberal Party figure Ron Walker to deliver the gold ransom to Cambodia in a private jet with the help of former SAS servicemen was never revealed to the family in full or made part of the inquest.
Mr Walker told The Age he had secured the ransom amount in gold ingots and arranged for a corporate jet to fly the gold to Cambodia if necessary.
''Even though Andrew Peacock (the then shadow foreign affairs minister) had offered ex-SAS people to help in Cambodia, there was no guarantee of safety for the people carrying the gold,'' he said. ''The people wanting the gold could not guarantee the safe passage of messengers bringing it and the plan was never carried out.'' A lawyer for DFAT told the Coroners Court in 2000 that the department file - which has stalled the inquest - was classified on the grounds of national security and was too sensitive to reveal. Former state coroner Graeme Johnstone - who retired in 2007 - had ordered the department to reveal all to the Wilson family and any classified material could be discussed in a closed court.
A spokeswoman for the Coroners Court told The Age it had received Wilson inquest documents requested from Canberra by Mr Johnstone, and that the hearing would not resume until the Wilsons had legal representation.
Mr Wilson's father, who no longer has a lawyer, said he had not heard anything from the court since 2007, when he last met DFAT lawyers and Mr Johnstone.
The former state coroner, who began hearing the inquest in 1998, could be brought out of retirement to complete it.
''I want the inquest to continue,'' Mr Wilson said. ''We've been kept in the dark for far too long. They have kept saying they can't endanger international relationships. … and now it's national security. They have been hiding behind the two.''
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