JUSTICE ACTION
Media Release: IVAN MILAT HUNGER STRIKE OVER
Ivan Milat has won the battle for access to legal support for his appeal
after a 59 day hunger strike. He had been forced to prepare his appeal to
the High Court of Australia himself, similarly to his appeal to the Court
of Criminal Appeal, without the benefit of proper legal advice.
For people who don't know, Ivan Milat has been vilified and demonised as
the alleged backpacker murderer. They have held him in effective solitary
confinement for over four years without any proper justification.
Goulburn prison governor Dave White met with Ivan for the first time for
weeks, and negotiated access to law support , and Ivan agreed to end his
hunger strike on Friday.
The prison accepted a box of excellent practical law books donated from
several senior counsel, Les Connolly and Justice Action on Saturday.
On Saturday prisoner para-lawyer (christian name not offered by White)
Wells was to go from minimum security X wing to help Ivan with legal
support for two hours - previously he had been withdrawn.
Justice Action was pleased to help bring the hunger strike to a successful
conclusion by having gathered together the legal texts that Ivan needed. In
doing so it embarrassed the government by supplying from the
community, the legal texts that the Department of Corrective Services said
it couldn't afford to supply even after the Inspector-General's
intervention. Corrective Services received over half a billion dollars for
their budget this year. Ivan Milat is their most high security prisoner and
was close to death as a martyr for the sake of fair access to the law!
The Inspector General Le Compte said in principle that Ivan is entitled to
the law books but he couldn't order Corrective Services to supply them.
This exercise showed community support for the principle of access to the
law for everyone. Shame to all those feeding off the system that they made
no effort to show that the system was fair, and that they didn't care about
a human life at all. What hypocrisy!
Contacts: Brett Collins: 0438 705003 Bill Milat: 0418 275515
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