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This is interesting. It was my understanding it was illegal for an Australian government agency to support/assist a foreign country in prosecuting an Australian citizen who faced the death penalty. Or extraditing someone to a country where they faced the death penalty. So these lines are especially interesting:
The AFP’s national manager of border and international investigations, Mike Phelan, says the AFP has not broken any Australian laws by assisting Indonesian police with their investigations.
“It’s certainly consistent with government policy and with Australian Federal Police guidelines that we have in relation to dealing in transnational crime as where the death penalty may exist,” he said.
“We can’t pick and choose who we deal with just because of the laws in their countries.”
Ah. Wait a tick. Yes we can. That’s the whole point of sanctions against people whose laws we don’t like. Didn’t like apartheid? Didn’t cooperate with the South African government. Didn’t like Iraq under Saddam and the laws in that country – enforce sanctions and then invade the place.
Oh wait – I get it – we should only not cooperate when we (or the British or the Americans) really, really don’t like the COUNTRY in question. Their laws aren’t important. We like (or at least pretend to like) Indonesia – so we don’t want to piss them off.
Now I am on the same page with the current government and the AFP – breaking our laws is okay when we like the other country and want to play nice.
