Daily News Roundup

 

THURSDAY, MARCH 4

Seventy-six of Australia’s top scientists and doctors are demanding Kathleen Folbigg — convicted of killing four of her infant children — be released from jail and pardoned immediately.

Folbigg, 53, was jailed for 30 years in 2003 for the murders of her children Patrick, Sarah and Laura – aged from eight months to 19 months – between 1991 and 1999.

She was also found guilty of the manslaughter of her firstborn child, Caleb, who was just 19 days old when he died in Newcastle in 1989.

However, a total of 76 eminent researchers, including two Nobel laureates and several Australians of the Year, say new medical evidence about a mutant gene carried by two of the Folbigg children ­creates a “strong presumption’’ they died from natural causes. An additional 14 inter­national experts have joined the call for action.

They have called on NSW Governor Margaret Beazley to pardon Folbigg and immediately release her from jail, calling for an end to the “miscarriage of justice’’ they say the Folbigg has suffered.

“The entire time that Kathleen Folbigg has been in custody is a result of a miscarriage of justice. This year, Ms Folbigg has been incarcerated for 18 years of her life,” they said in a joint statement.

“The executive prerogative of mercy is designed to deal with failures of the justice system such as this one. It is incumbent on the Governor to exercise her power to stop the ongoing miscarriage of justice suffered by Ms Folbigg. Not to do so is to continue to deny Ms Folbigg basic human rights and to decrease faith in the New South Wales justice system.

“Ms Folbigg’s case also establishes a dangerous precedent as it means that cogent medical and scientific evidence can simply be ignored in preference to subjective interpretations of circumstantial evidence.”

Folbigg was found to have smothered her children, but the experts say that is not possible and their deaths were all from natural causes.

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Prime Minister Scott Morrison has dismissed calls for an inquiry into a historical rape allegation against Attorney-General Christian Porter.

An anonymous letter sent to the Prime Minister had accused Mr Porter of raping a woman in Sydney in 1988, long before he entered politics.

At a press conference yesterday Mr Porter “categorically” denied the allegation and said he would not be standing down from Cabinet.

The woman contacted police in 2019 but took her own life last year.

On Tuesday, New South Wales Police said there was “insufficient admissible evidence” to investigate, and that the case was now closed.

The opposition has called for an inquiry into the allegation to go ahead, but has said it would be up to Mr Morrison to decide how, and what form it takes.

“I don’t agree with that because I don’t agree with the precedent or the prima facie case for there being such a process,” the Prime Minister said.

“Because that would say the rule of law and our police are not competent to deal with these issues.

“This is not the mob process.

“There is not the ‘tribe-has-spoken’ process.

“That’s not how we run the rule of law in Australia.”

Mr Morrison began his press conference today saying: “These are harrowing events.”

“And for the family of the woman at the centre of these issues, as the Attorney-General commenced his remarks yesterday, my heart can only break for anyone who has lost a child…and the issues surrounding that and the way that this matter is now being addressed in the public domain,” he said.

The Australian newspaper said earlier this week that a former Liberal adviser, Dhanya Mani, who was friends with the woman, said her friend’s grieving parents wrote to the ABC specifically asking them not to proceed with publishing details of their daughter’s claims last Friday.

Yesterday, Mr Porter said Mr Morrison had given him his “full backing”.

“I can say categorically that what has been put in various forms in allegations, simply did not happen,” he said.

“Nothing in the allegations that have been printed ever happened.”

Mr Morrison said he was glad Mr Porter was taking two weeks off for the sake of his mental health.

“I spoke to [Mr Porter] yesterday and I’m pleased that he’s taking some time to get support to deal with what has obviously been a very traumatic series of events, as you’d appreciate,” he said.

“He’s getting that support, as well as the support of his colleagues, as he takes that time.

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Washington D.C. is bracing for chaos today as a militia group prepares to carry out a plot to storm the Capitol building and reinstate Donald Trump as president.

US Capitol Police are gearing up for the planned attack after officers received an intelligence bulletin overnight that states the members of the far-right “Three Percenters” militia group were mobilising.

A joint FBI and Department of Homeland Security intelligence bulletin also warned the extremists have “discussed plans to take control of the US Capitol and remove democratic lawmakers on or about 4 March”, sources told FOX 5.

The threat was considered credible enough that the US House cancelled its Thursday session, instead deciding to hold a vote on a police reform bill Wednesday night.

In online discussions, QAnon fans predict the assault will result in Mr Trump being reinstated as president with a inauguration taking place today.

The threat comes nearly two months after Trump supporters, including QAnon followers, stormed the Capitol building and laid siege to Congress, in an attack that left five people dead and shook the centre of American democracy.

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The United Nations says 38 people were killed in Myanmar on Wednesday as the military quelled protests in several towns and cities, the most violent day since demonstrations against last month’s military coup first broke out.

Police and soldiers opened fire with live rounds with little warning, witnesses said.

The bloodshed occurred one day after neighbouring countries had called for restraint in the aftermath of the military’s overthrow of the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi.

“It’s horrific, it’s a massacre. No words can describe the situation and our feelings,” youth activist Thinzar Shunlei Yi told Reuters.

The dead included four children, an aid agency said. Hundreds of protesters were arrested, local media reported.

“Today, it was the bloodiest day since the coup happened on the 1st of February,” United Nations special envoy on Myanmar, Christine Schraner Burgener, said in New York.

“We had today — only today — 38 people died. We have now more than over 50 people died since the coup started, and many are wounded,” she said.

Save the Children said that four children were among the dead, including a 14-year-old boy who Radio Free Asia reported was shot dead by a soldier on a passing convoy of military trucks.

The violence took place a day after foreign ministers from South-East Asian neighbours urged restraint but failed to unite behind a call for the release of Ms Suu Kyi and the restoration of democracy.

Pope Francis said on Twitter: “Sad news of bloody clashes and loss of life … I appeal to the authorities involved that dialogue may prevail over repression.”

The European Union said the shootings of unarmed civilians and medical workers were clear breaches of international law.

It also said the military was stepping up repression of the media, with a growing number of journalists arrested and charged

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The eye-watering scale of accused conwoman Melissa Caddick’s alleged fraud has been laid bare in a long-awaited report into her financial affairs.

The report, obtained by the Sydney Morning Herald, shows she misappropriated around $25 million of investors’ funds before she vanished from her $7 million Dover Heights mansion in Sydney’s eastern suburbs last November.

However, the two-part document has been met with disappointment from investors, who say it is heavily redacted and hard to make sense of – meaning they still have no idea where their funds have gone.

It’s understood the first part of the report was into Ms Caddicks’s financial affairs and the other into her company Maliver.

According to the report, Ms Caddick used Maliver as a money-laundering vehicle.

“Money went in [to the company] and then money went out,” one of the investors told the Herald.

It comes as the search for Ms Caddick enters a crucial phase, with police divers preparing to search waters near her home at Dover Heights.

 A NSW Police boat was seen in the water just 300m from her Sydney home on Wednesday.

Experts had intended to dive – looking for more remains related to the 49-year-old – but weather conditions proved too dangerous and the search was postponed.

It’s understood it will resume today if conditions improve.

Meanwhile, police have confirmed human remains found at a beach at Mollymook on the NSW south coast belong to a missing Ingleburn man.

On Wednesday, the remains were revealed as belonging to a man reported missing from Sydney last month.

The police search has returned to Dover Heights, Sydney. Picture: NCA NewsWire/James GourleySource:News Corp Australia

Police were called to the Mollymook Beach at about 6.30pm on Friday, after a member of the public located human remains.

It came hours after police told the public about discovering Ms Caddick’s badly decomposed foot in an Asics running shoe at Bournda Beach the previous Sunday.

After campers found Ms Caddick’s shoe on February 21 police confirmed the foot inside belonged to her by comparing DNA from her toothbrush.

The mystery deepened when last Saturday, two bones were found on Tura Beach, just a few kilometres north of where Ms Caddick’s shoe was found.