NSW: Labor told to let inquiry hear drug death claims
By Peter Williams and Anthony Stavrinos
SYDNEY, Dec 15 AAP - ALP members of a federal inquiry into crime have been urged notto interfere in the hearing of allegations that a royal commission caused the overdosedeaths of drug addicts.
The claim is one of a number of accusations that former NSW police officers are expectedto make at the inquiry by the lower house standing committee on legal and constitutionalaffairs, which is chaired by federal Liberal MP Bronwyn Bishop, a newspaper reported today.
The Sun Herald said former homicide detective and National Crime Authority investigatorMick McGann would allege the Wood Royal Commission into police corruption caused the deathsin Sydney's Kings Cross.
A number of fatal overdoses occurred during a sting operation designed to snare corruptofficers in 1996, the paper said.
According to the report, royal commission investigators allowed criminals, who hadoffered to supply evidence to the crown, to continue to ply their trade while wearingsecret recording devices.
Detectives listened as they sold drugs allegedly more than five times the normal streetpurity before the lethal trade was stopped, the paper reported.
It was claimed recordings still in existence featured criminals telling the investigatorsthat addicts using the over-strength heroin were "dropping like flies".
The testimony of Mr McGann and other former and serving NSW police officers is expectedto embarrass the state government in the lead-up to next March's election.
Mrs Bishop earlier this month accused the ALP of trying to stifle damaging evidenceby demanding the inquiry hear the witnesses' testimony behind closed doors.
Mrs Bishop said Labor committee member Daryl Melham's use of standing orders to holdup the inquiry before Mr McGann and other witnesses could testify "smacked of a cover-up".
Mr Melham said Mrs Bishop could easily have heard the evidence in-camera and releasedit later, rather than turn it into "political theatre".
NSW opposition police spokesman Andrew Tink today called on federal Labor to allowthe hearings to be open to all.
"The people making (the claims) appear not to be satisfied with things to date andI think they've (the claims) got to be pursued," Mr Tink told reporters in Sydney.
"It's vitally important that the Bishop committee be able to test those allegationsin a public forum."
AAP pw/was/br
KEYWORD: OVERDOSES NIGHTLEAD
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