The Lindt Café Inquest – 99 Ways to See Through It

by Mary W Maxwell, LLB

[Editor’s note: In December last year was the fourth anniversary of the Sydney Siege. Below is the verbatim copy of the letter Mary Maxwell sent to the coroner – before he completed his Inquest.]

The following “Ninety-Nine Ways” letter was sent to the NSW Coroner’s Court in 2016 and was acknowledged in a reply from Melissa Heris, solicitor for the Lindt Café inquest. No changes have been made here, but bolding and boxed headings are added.

To Coroner Michael Barnes September 30, 2016

Your Honour:

I respectfully submit this as an interested citizen. I am grateful for the opportunity to contribute to the Inquest. I am at your service to do more if required.

99 Things about the Lindt Café Siege That Do Not Add Up:

*1. None of the suggested motives for Monis’s actions on 15 December, 2014 are satisfying. Religion cannot possibly be the motive as Mr Monis was plainly a liar, a thief, an exploiter, and so forth. We all know how a genuinely God-fearing person behaves.

*2. Politics cannot have been Monis’ motive. Many Australians — perhaps even a majority — oppose our nation’s policy in the Middle East. If a citizen wants to take action, there are ways to do that. Monis does seem to have done some of them: such as writing to Parliament and carrying a protest sign. But he surely would have noticed that to get anywhere you need some sort of power base. He appears quite the loner. “Unaffiliated.”

*3. How could the actions Monis took, have accomplished anything for his alleged causes? Interrupting the CBD is not a winning way. Being mean to 18 Aussies is not a winning way. The whole thing looks bonkers.*4. Monis’ “letter campaign to soldier’s families” is bonkers from A to Z. It is not the sign of a mean, obnoxious person. It looks (to me) to be much more in the nature of a way to establish his persona as mean and obnoxious. Part of a big plan.

*5. His ability to get the media — especially the usually sober ABC — to follow him around and have him talk on Religion Report raises orange flags with me. ABC knows better than to let him get away with using the title Ayatollah without asking to see some credentials, and he did not have any. Why did ABC promote Monis?

*6. The business of the ex-wife being stabbed and set aflame in a stairwell is straight out of Hollywood. Monis would never have ordered it (if he were not protected), as it would clearly land him in prison, even if he only did it as an accessory.

*7. As for Amirah doing the job, this is absurd. We sometimes hear of jealous women, but that is in a love triangle. No one suggests she needed to get rid of Noleen out of jealousy. So why then?

*8. I do appreciate that Monis’ morals were such that he would do anything — but again, where is the motive? He seems to have loved his sons. Almost all humans love their children. In the scenario we have been given, he would have removed their mom from this earth. Seems counterproductive to me: the result would have been that his sons would hate Dad.

*9. I can tell you, Your Honour, after researching the Port Arthur case to within an inch if its life, that persons in government and/or media are quite capable of setting up a story for its effect on the general public, knowing that the details will never be looked into. Of course media cooperates fully in this endeavor.

*10. Re Port Arthur, it was quite simply stated that Martin Bryant had a grudge against an old neighbor couple and so decided, out of the blue, to murder them. And then – for no reason that the DPP could explain – went wild and shot 33 more people. I know with certainty that this story was carefully set up, did not happen, and the public was prevented from scrutinizing it.

*11. Likewise for Jahar Tsarnaev in Boston, a Muslim. The media, and also the FBI and governor of Massachusetts, said Jahar did this, that, and the other thing for which there is no evidence. Example: he did a carjacking when he had a perfectly good car of his own, and when such a theft would have guaranteed his capture by police. Absolute nonsense (and he, Jahar will soon be executed on the strength of this nonsense, age 23.)

*12. Bryant and Tsarnaev didn’t know what hit them. Neither of them was aware that he was being asked to take part in a “scenario.” But Monis must have known. He must have been acting under instructions – not only by showing up at the café, but doing the aforementioned routines, such as the letters to bereaved families.

*13. I believe one can tell by the way the media writes up these events that it is all well planned. Do we have to go along with it? I, and many others, can’t tolerate it. We don’t enjoy being made fools of. It is all so demeaning to society, and tells our young folk that nothing is supposed to make sense anymore.

Note: So far I am not referring to what I heard at the Coroner’s Court but only my own background and common sense. Now I pick out a few things from the Inquest.

*14. The negotiator was a joke. There were no negotiations. Of course there wouldn’t be any if it were all part of plan to let the “crisis” stretch out for a whole day. How else can we explain that the first time a Muslim event had come to our shores we didn’t get in there and attack it brilliantly. It must have been ordered that no contact with Monis would occur. So why?

*15. In the same category is the refusal to let Michael Klooster act as a go-between. Or Monis’ family doctor. I suppose that is the kind of go-between the police reach for if a man is about to jump off a building. A calm professional who could talk nice.

*16. It really is shocking to me that Klooster was not allowed in. I mean it shocks me that the Inquest could just brush over it. It seems such a huge indication of what really was going on. Did the staff ever brainstorm about things like this I wonder.

*17. As for Lucas Van der Walt’s testimony, it seemed to make sense at the time, but I received a challenge over my write-up of it in Gumshoe News (a Melbourne-based website of independent media). Some army veterans said it sounded wrong. That caused me to read it over again and then I found really peculiar things (unrelated to what the veterans said about guns).

*18. I found that after his long description of Katrina sitting in a chair, Lucas Van der Walt then said she must have been “on her tummy” when she was shot. And after he described the direction of the bullet that got to Monis as being up his back, we heard categorically from Officer A that he shot him frontally in the head.

*19. I do realize that many witnesses will say different things, but I had not heard anyone go back to what the expert had said and question it. I assume the data given by Lucas now has to be rated as low value. To my layperson mind, his technical description of how the bullet went into the chair does not match the tummy story!

*20. The fact that every member of the police said that he (or she, in the case of Ms Burn) did not have the responsibility for the all-important decision of when to commit the EA was startling. It is normal for there to be a boss. It’s just completely natural. I can hardly even imagine how things would get done without a chain of command that had no mysterious gaps in it.

*21. Your Honour, I admit again to thinking it was not a matter of “sorting out the confusion” as to who was in charge, but rather a plan by which people would feel confused. And why would anyone plan for that? So the real goings-on would stay out of view. This was blatant in Port Arthur’s Seascape issue.

*22. Another thing that seemed OK to me when I attended the testimony was the head of Team Charlie explaining the entry into the firewell. I, being a girl, know nothing about guns. It at first made sense to me that there would be many shooters entering the stronghold, and a lot of noise. But now I ask, if we live in a city that has professional snipers, what was all the fire power for? Wouldn’t it lead to collateral damage (as it did)?

*23. And that brings up the subject of the Sierras. One thing we were told (if I heard correctly) was that for the Westpac shooters to do the needful they would lose a few seconds (or maybe accuracy) as the bullet went through their own window. But couldn’t they have first drilled a hole in the Westpac window?

*24. I read in the news that if the snipers stood outside and shot through “white window,” there was a risk of “catastrophic” harm to hostages. It sounds good, to turn people off thinking, but really I don’t think the notion is supportable. Police experts must know of many instances of sniping through glass, and the outcomes. There’s no need to make a general ban on sniping as “too risky.”

*25. When the moment came to enter the white door, Officer A (or maybe the shield bearer) said the glass doors had to be breached. Really? Didn’t the owner of the building have a swipe card? Does not the police force have ways to open an electronically locked door? Was all that aggression for show?

And so I come, hesitantly, to the topic of the exits and escapes. Hesitantly because I am skeptical of the hostages’ stories.

*26. I did not attend any of the hearings at which hostages spoke. And I have not read their sworn testimony (and don’t know how to access it). I have seen most of them speak on TV (all but Balafoutis, Vassalo, and Robyn Hope).

*27. They would have us believe that they were unable to escape. I think most or all could have escaped. That is not to say it is always the best choice to make. I know how I am, sometimes, in a bad situation: I wait for it to pass. Also, I did hear them say that they were afraid to leave lest it bring harm to the stay-behinds.

*28. But recently I went in to the Lindt Café at about 10am. I saw a very accessible fire exit. Granted, on the day of my visit many cartons were piled up inside that door, so it would have taken moments, and maybe strength, to move them.

*29. As we know, Paul Vassalo got out via that fire exit, so it must have been possible. And the other 7 staff would have known of the existence of that door.

*30. Also, we can see in the video where John O’Brien is talking to police outside that fire exit, that this fire door is actually standing open. We can read the words “do not obstruct” which are printed on the inside of the door. I can’t believe that the police did not know that door was open. I hereby state: they did know.

*31. In any case, once Vassalo got out he could have told the police all about the various exits. Moreover he could probably have reached into his wallet and given them his swipe card.

*32. I have read that, as kitchen manager, he started work at 7am. On a day when the boss was late I doubt Vassalo would have to stand outside; he must have had a way of getting in. It was not through the French door, which has an inside slip lock. It wouldn’t be the fire exit. It must have been the main door. This is done by a swipe card.

*33. Indeed Jarrod Morton-Hoffman said that during the siege he went into the manager’s office and grabbed a swipe card with an eye to slipping it out under the door to help police. (But he didn’t)

*34. I read that Paul Vassalo was kept in hospital till 7pm because of his “vital signs.” That is believable, but keeping him sequestered could also have been a way of preventing him from talking.

*35. Now for ways to get out the main door. John O’Brien did it easily enough by pressing the green button. Thus I am suspicious of all the talk about Monis telling Tori to “lock the doors.”

*36. I can see that Tori locked the main door by touching some electronic thing, so that customers could not enter the shop. But that main door was never locked in the sense of hostages being unable to pass through it. And from the moment John got through it at 3.30pm they all would have realized it was actually “openable.” And Monis would have become aware of it, too.

I pause in my inventory of doors to mention Monis’ situation.

*37. Here was a very vulnerable man, Mr Monis. He was in Sydney’s CBD, an impressive place, no doubt full of security guards for banks, etc. It was business hours. He had a gun but he did not know (how could he know?) if any of the customers had a gun. He might wonder if there was a button under the table that Tori could press to bring the troops. (Probably there was!)

*38. He sits down with his only command over 18 people being his statement to them that they are locked in (which was visibly untrue). He supposedly gets them to fear him and obey him. But three of them are barristers. Two are bank executives. Does that make sense? A barrister or a bank manager is a strong clear thinker.

*39. Two girls were pregnant and yet they did not escape till 2am. I think a mother-to-be is so focused on protecting her unborn that she would escape if it were at all possible. I do realize that the very fact of needing to protect the child could have led, instead, to a conservative strategy. She may have opted to do Monis’ bidding rather than take risks. Still, Harriet, being a café employee, would have known the ease of using the fire exit; I think she’d run.

*40. Now for the French doors. In the house I grew up in, there were French (swinging) doors between the living room and dining room. The very same type of doors appears at the back of Lindt Café. When I wanted to exit during my recent visit, I simply leaned my shoulder gently on the door and it opened smoothly. I instantly found myself in the lift foyer.

*41. Was that door ever locked that day? I think Tori did lock it. I see that the way of locking it is for someone inside the café to reach up and push a slip lock into the frame above the door. It is a long brass item. (There isn’t a matching one to stick down into the floor.)

*42. The two waitresses who used it for their 4.30pm escape simply reached up and unlocked it. It stayed unlocked. Thus, when the six escapees ran out at 2.13am they used that door. Apparently Monis had absented himself, such as by going to the kitchen, so they made their escape. (Julie, Ghosh, Joel, Jarrod, Harriet, and Viswa. Perhaps Fiona also, but I don’t see her in the film.)

*43. It was said at the hearings that Monis then chased them into the firewell (via the French doors) and fired a shot over their heads. One wonders what that was about. He had his chance – actually he had had the chance all day – to commit violence. I did not see any explanation given for his holding back.

The crucial question is why did Monis kill anyone?

*44. But he did hold back, so then why would he proceed to kill Tori Johnson? As far as we heard, he had no record of violence. (The famous sexual assaults, never proven, occurred in a more or less consensual setting.) Maybe he was too wussy to perform a shooting.

*45. It was said in the media early on, that someone reported Monis to have uttered the words, after killing Tori, “See what you made me do?” Doesn’t one wish to know who reported that? At that point the only persons left in the café were Monis, Katrina, Marcia, Selina, Louisa, and Robyn.

*46. The only persons who could have told media about those words are Marcia, Selina, Louisa, or Robyn. But they do not seem to have claimed it. So why did the media publish it? Can the reporter who wrote that say where he or she got it?

*47. It is a peculiar thing for Monis to have said. But if he had been set up for this whole incident and only came to realize late in the day that it was not going as scheduled, he may have got confused, shot Tori, and then said “See what you made me do.”

*48. Back to Monis’ motives. All day he was supposedly trying to perform a brave and altruistic deed for his co-religionists by saying that Australia must get out of Afghanistan. How could he think his scheme would work?

*49. Did Monis imagine that by proclaiming to control three brothers in the field, carrying bombs, Australia’s prime minister would be forced to cooperate? I guess it’s a possibility, but not very likely.

*50. If Monis were eccentric in the way media have tried to suggest, he may have felt guided by God, as it were, to get this nation to change its foreign policy (as I myself think it should). If so, when did Monis think it all up? Did he consult anyone? Did partner Amirah Droudis know of the siege plan? Almost everyone seeks advice.

And now we move to a discussion of the Droudis trial, which began in August, 2016 and will end soon.

*51. The established fact (but I have my doubts) is that the ex-wife of Monis, the mother of his two boys, was killed by being stabbed. It allegedly occurred on April 21, 2013. Not until November of that year was Amirah Droudis arrested as the likely killer, but she was let out on bail and re-arrested shortly after the siege.

*52. The only point of discussing it here is to aid an interpretation of Monis at the siege, or Monis in general.

*53. The prosecutor, Mark Tedeschi, QC, has said that Monis was the mastermind of the murder. He accuses Amirah of being the woman who was seen, in Muslim garb, doing the stabbing. One neighbor saw the action in full (or claims to have), and another heard screaming. On what evidence is the prosecutor able to blame Monis?

*54. I attended the trial for 9 days and did not see any evidence that Amirah was involved. Almost all the information came from one police detective, Melanie Staples, the officer in charge of the homicide investigation. For example, she presented a report about fingerprinting and DNA testing, none of which implicated Amirah.

*55. Much was made of alibis that by their nature seemed false. Monis rather conspicuously created a car crash between himself and a friend on the afternoon of the killing. While this means that he was not at the stairwell in Wellington during the 4pm murder, it does mean that he knew he needed an alibi.

*56. Alternatively, if he was hired or forced to participate in a car crash he might not have known that the ex-wife was going to be killed. We saw a video of him in hospital being told of her death and I think he was faking surprise, but possibly he was actually surprised.

*57. We also saw a home video of him at his son’s birthday party. I formed the opinion that he acted naturally, even lovingly, with his kids. A woman outside the courthouse told me that he had made that video to use in Family Court to get custody. She also told me that he got his kids to call Amirah Mummy by telling them her first name was Mumi. If true, that shows he is a snake-in-the-grass.

*58. It was said by Detective Staples, based on interviews she conducted, that Monis had tried to put out a contract on the ex-wife’s partner, and he also “priced” a hit on his boys’ maternal grandparents! The persons who claimed this did not appear in court so there was no cross-examination. My guess is that it’s not true, or that Monis conducted those conversations “under instructions.”

*59. The Droudis trial is judge-only, no jury, at the accused’s request. Of course nothing is being said for or against Monis since it is not his trial. I saw on a video that he treated Amirah’s mom badly.

*60. Yet I must mention that I find both the prosecution and the defense very peculiar. The defender (Mark Ierace, SC) brought in two witnesses, to give Amirah an alibi. He must have gone over their story with him. But Tedeschi wrecked their alibi story in no time flat. The result was that Amirah looked worse. The data the prosecution used to unravel the alibi was also available to Ierace, the defender.

*61. As no weapon was found, and the one eyewitness to the murder picked out the “wrong” woman from photographs, I assume the judge will have to acquit.

*62. Your Honour, since I believe Monis did the siege on someone’s instructions, rather than as a madman, it is my guess that Amirah, too, is an instruction-taker. Her demeanor gave nothing away in the courtroom. I can’t read her at all.

*63. I can read the way the case is being run and I think it has a lot of falseness in it. There are many, many false cases in America.

Back to the siege.

*64. One of the three deaths is accounted for in what strikes me as a conclusive way. Officer A gives a clear and credible description of having fired a certain number of shots at Monis’ chest and head with benefit of a red laser beam. I believe him.

*65. I personally think the other two deaths are not resolved. I would want to see a cross-examination of the four or five hostages who were in the café when Tori died. That does not mean I think they killed him. I quite doubt that. I mean hostages shouldn’t be treated as saints who must not be subjected to hard questioning.

*66. Surely the likely killer of Tori is Monis. I guess Your Honour will be making your conclusion on that according to the autopsy report. I think I heard Lucas Van der Walt say that the head wound received by Tori was from lead pellets and not copper bullets (though I am not sure I heard that, and his disposal of the Dawson death does not inspire confidence).

*67. The case of the death of Katrina needs more questions to be asked. Why did the media, within hours of the storming, report Katrina as having died from a heart attack? It is possible that she did die of a heart attack from poison, and not from bullet fragments.

*68. It is possible she was marked for death as part of the emotional story. If the event was scripted, and I think it was, it is standard for children to die. In the Oklahoma City bombing, the media harped on the babies. After the siege there was emphasis on the bereaved kids.

Then there is the matter of themes, easily seen in the news.

*69. One of the many reasons I think the siege was scripted is the unified way that the media is handling it. Themes have been presented and then vigorously propagated. One is that the police acted incompetently. That is not the usual newspaper approach to “our dear cops.” It is a preface to remarks about the need for military intervention.

*70. In an interview very soon after the siege, hostage Marcia Mikhael volunteered an opinion that the Defense Department would have done a better job.

*71. In November, 2015, Acting Police Commissioner Caldis said that NSW was switching to an FBI training style (after the siege).

*72. It seems to me a bad joke that the army won’t answer the simple question “What day was the mock-up of the Lindt Café built at Holsworthy?” Since they won’t answer it – which itself seems suspicious – I am free to guess. I hereby guess that there was no such mock-up. They may have a generic urban warfare building.

*73. The lack of negotiation with Monis, when citizens’ lives were at stake, is probably sufficient proof that the event was scripted. If so, all the police negotiators would have to have been in on it. It is my opinion that they were, and that they need to be investigated.

*74. The lack of using the first five escaped hostages as excellent sources for information about how to get in through the fire door, or how to ambush Monis, tells me almost certainly that this was not a real national crisis at all.

*75. Herewith some of the Monis themes: a man from Iran of dubious background was allowed to settle in Australia as an asylum seeker. He then sent harassing letters to parents of Diggers. He was an Islamic cleric, an attention seeker, a mental case. He had sex with many women in his “spiritual healing” trade. He embezzled $200,000 from a travel agency. He tried to join the Rebels bikies gang. He organized the gory murder of the mother of his two sons. Charged as an accessory to murder, he got bail. He seized a café, asked for an ISIS flag, and said Australia is under attack. He killed Tori Johnson for no reason. These themes provide a colorful bio for a terrorist.

Reasons for thinking the siege was fake.

*76. The fact that Prime Minister did not seem to be involved, nor did the NSW premier or his Minister for Police, is a sign that no one needed to get in there because there was really no problem.

*77. It was said in the media (and acknowledged at the Inquest) that most of the hostages had signed contracts to make their story exclusive with Channel 7. This could be a method of keeping any other curious journalists from asking the hostages any questions.

*78. It could also be a way for any hostages who work for coverts, to be paid in a way that won’t raise suspicion about their income.

*79. In watching Selina and Marcia at televised interviews I sense they are very poor actresses. That does not mean they are actresses, but only that this is how they come across to me. The dabbing away of non-existent tears by Marcia needs explanation.

*80. Jarrod states, as his reason for not attacking Monis from behind, that there was a gun on Monis’ lap pointed at Julie Taylor. That doesn’t make sense. One does not pull a trigger while a gun is on one’s lap. One has to pick it up and aim it. So the fact of Julie’s vulnerability cannot be what prevented Jarrod from attacking.

*81. An official psychiatrist opined that the women who referred to Monis as “brother” (Julie, Selina, Louisa, Marcia) on a video during the siege were exhibiting Stockholm syndrome. That is ridiculous; it takes a long time for Stockholm syndrome to set in. The video was made within the first few hours of the siege. No psychiatrist would come to such a diagnosis. I see bad faith operating here.

*82. Fiona Ma says that she was allowed to escort hostages upstairs to the toilets. Why would Monis trust Fiona, unless she was part of the script? Indeed, why assign anyone to do that escorting, as it plainly allowed for two people to plot and plan against him?

*83. One of the hostages said he asked Fiona, during a toilet trip, if the green button worked. She said she did not know. But as an employee she must have been familiar with the after-hours method of exiting with the green button, and also knew of the fire exit.

*84. Speaking of toilets, it is reported that when Monis needed to urinate he asked a hostage to bring him a bottle into which he urinated under the table. That probably happened more than once in the 16-hour siege. It requires two hands to do that, so any hostage could have grabbed his gun and the siege would have been over.

*85. The siege did end at the very moment that the 11pm News was playing on the East Coast of the US, and was broadcast there.

*86. It was reported by the Sydney Morning Herald of December 20, 2015, online, that the wife and daughter of Police Commissioner Andrew Scipione had visited the Lindt Café on the morning of the siege. The Commissioner even stated that Tori Johnson had warmly greeted them and given them a tour of the Café. They left by 8.30am. It is possibly true, but seems an amazing coincidence.

Entrapment and terrorism are routinely created by authorities.

*87. A good reason for thinking the siege was fake is that the NSW police had already created a fake Muslim attack in September, three months before the siege. They alleged that a member of the ADF had been attacked at 6.30am, in the Bella Vista district of Sydney, while wearing his uniform – a very serious crime. The attackers were “men of Middle Eastern appearance.” The media gave it instant coverage and that very night the Senate passed new laws to restrict terrorism. Later the police admitted it hadn’t happened at all!

*88. Similarly, the faking of an ISIS siege in Sydney could be “justified” by the political “need” to rouse Aussies against Iran, Monis being Iranian. There appears to be a world war in the making, with a Russian-Iranian enemy as a major player.

*89. On August 9, 2016, at GumshoeNews.com, I published an article entitled “Serious Shortcomings of the Inquest.” One shortcoming I identified was “Entrapment was not investigated or alluded to.”

*90. In Canada, on July 30, 2016, Justice Catherine Bruce of the BC Supreme Court acquitted two persons, Amanda Kolody and John Nuttall, who had been falsely accused of plotting to blow up the provincial legislature. It was a sting operation by the Mounties.

*91. The judge said in her ruling:

“Simply put, the world has enough terrorists. We do not need the police to create more out of marginalized people who have neither the capacity nor sufficient motivation to do it themselves.”

*92. In an affidavit sent to the US District court in Boston, Maret Tsarnaeva, a lawyer who is the aunt of the now convicted “Marathon bomber” Dzhokhar (Jahar) Tsarnaev, wrote: “The lawyers from Boston strongly advised that Anzor and Zubeidat [parents of Jahar] refrain from saying in public that Dzhokhar and Tamerlan were not guilty. They warned that, if their advice were not followed, Dzhokhar’s life in custody near Boston would be more difficult.”

*93. The Human Rights Institute at Columbia University participated in a study of 27 terrorism cases. They relied on court documents, publicly available documents, Freedom of Information Act requests, and more than 215 interviews with people involved in terrorism cases, including defendants, lawyers, family members, academics, and government officials. They found a pattern of encouragement, facilitation, and grooming of targets.

*94. A report by Human Rights Watch states “All of the high profile domestic terrorism plots of the last decade, with four exceptions, were actually FBI sting operations.”

*95. Concerning police stand-downs, Professor Michel Chossudovsky of the University of Ottawa has written about the Paris incident:

“[The police] were instructed according to their rules of engagement not to intervene, not to come to the rescue of the people inside the Bataclan nightclub or those in the street in front of the Bataclan. 89 people were killed, and more than 100 wounded.” I think it is thus obvious who arranged that incident in the first place.

Conclusion.

*96. It was noted by the Inquest that a report on Monis by the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet, jointly with the NSW Office of Premier and Cabinet, stated that on April 16, 2014:

“[Monis] requests that the Parramatta Local Court investigate his allegation that NSW Police Force and ASIO are involved in the murder of his former partner. The request is denied.”

*97. Your Honour I fully realize that the way I am talking is “way out of bounds.” Indeed folks think there must be something wicked about a citizen who would utter such opinions. Oh really? Isn’t the wickedness on the part of the ones who did this terrible thing, not only killing people in Sydney but negating our reasonableness?

*98. This Inquest is one of the few ways people can get facts. Please give the broader context of fake terrorism a hearing, Your Honour. This will go badly for you personally, though. Persons who stick up for the truth get smeared, financially ruined, bereaved of a loved one, or put in prison – if not killed outright.

*99. The Wood Royal Commission and the Fitzgerald Royal Commission showed massive police corruption in Australia. A Victorian cop named Denis Ryan, age a 83, author of Unholy Trinity, told the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse this year that his life was one of hardship because he tried to do the right thing about the crime of pedophilia. He was always blocked by bosses and also by his cop colleagues. Today the Royal Commission is helping significantly to set things right.

— Mary W Maxwell is currently in the United States. On March 17, 2019 at 2pm she will present a show at the Adelaide Fringe entitled “Crikey! Australian Conspiracy Theories”