The Inspector of ICAC in his report to Parliament dated 28 June 2017 has confirmed the innocence of Charif Kazal after 7 years of wrongful persecution by the body established to fight corruption.
The ICAC is a corruption “watchdog” in NSW Australia that severely dropped the ball on their investigation of Charif Kazal for corruption. Charif was exonerated by the ICAC in June 2017 but not before they illegitimately persecuted him and his family for 7 years. The ICAC inspector report released confirms the innocence of Charif, that the accusations were unwarranted and that no further inquiries will be launched regarding his case.
On five separate occasions, the Director of Public Prosecutions Office in NSW made clear to the ICAC that there are no legal grounds to pursue this case. It is now evident that the ICAC commissioner refused to acknowledge the states suggested actions and continued to try to incriminate Mr. Kazal.
It was no clear that this case was had insufficient grounds to require a Public Inquiry and the Inspector of ICAC has told Parliament that the then ICAC Commissioner David Ipp breached his own legally binding ICAC Act by embarking on allegations that did not meet the litmus test of requiring evidence of any negligence to justify the large public expense involved.
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Welcome to ICAC watch, the watchdogs’ watchdog. The ICAC has recently been exposed for years of wrongdoing to Charif Kazal and Australian World Trading. We invite you to read our stories about how Charif was finally cleared from the injustice the ICAC inflicted on him.
If the purpose of a Public Inquiry is to shed light on corruption then this case was a total blackout.
Yet not only did the Director of Public Prosecutions Office advise ICAC there was no evidence of wrongdoing to warrant any charges against anyone stemming from this Inquiry, they had to repeat this no less than 5 times as ICAC continually pushed for the DPP to commence legal action. Incredibly, the Commissioner of ICAC refused to accept the word of the States specialist litigants and after bypassing legal staff to bring in the Deputy Director of the DPP, Commissioner Ipp eventually decided he didn’t like his explanation so complained all the way to the Director of the DPP himself who had to hose Ipp down and put him back in his box. If that sheer bloody-minded arrogance of refusing to accept the advice of the senior most litigants of the State of NSW does not concern the politicians of the State of NSW then it is abundantly clear where the true level of corruption exists in that State.
How can any ethical politician stand by and allow such witch hunts to be taking place unchecked on their watch as the protectors of the legal rights of their citizens?
This is not the only case with such unmitigated screw ups being allowed to tarnish the reputation of innocent victims, but it offers an insight into the sinister activities that can and are occurring in a body that does not have the checks and balances of a typical government agency and has been allowed to operate outside of its own legislation with politicians in fear of speaking against them out of concerns they may be targeted.
The report by the Inspector of ICAC to Parliament about Mr. Kazal’s case was written by a retired former Judge and highly experienced legal practitioner. Just like his predecessor, the Inspector has called for the Parliament of NSW to introduce an Exoneration Protocol. This is the only solution to clear innocent victims like Mr. Kazal who have been wrongfully accused because the same NSW Parliament previously rushed through overnight legislation that blocked the right of innocent victims like Charif Kazal from taking his case to Court to clear his name. Can you believe it? Because they knew they stuffed up with a number of cases, rather than hold ICAC accountable and correct the wrongs, they instead elected to legislate to say nobody previously accused of wrongdoing can go to Court to appeal for the manner in which they were falsely accused and had their reputation tarnished for life. Sorry people, the ICAC cannot be seen to have stuffed up monumentally so we will legislate a cover-up. Congratulations NSW Politicians, you have officially demonstrated your willingness to go beyond where despot dictators of third world regimes have gone in the past.
The Politicians decided it was ok for certain NSW Citizens to have their reputations tarnished and businesses and careers destroyed by the word of an organization that relies on cheap media stunts, political agendas and individuals with an arrogant pleasure in being able to attack people without sticking to the rules of law that include someone’s right to being treated innocent until proven guilty. It’s like pulling the wings off butterflies according to Commissioner Latham who took over from Ipp with the same arrogance and contempt for the rules of law.
The ICAC did not operate remotely on a fair playing field in Mr. Kazal’s case. In fact, the only genuine evidence they had was a statement that confirmed the media allegations at the time about Mr. Kazal were completely false! Yet instead of releasing this evidence to quash the false allegations, the ICAC buried them because it didn’t suit their narrative on the case that by this time was well publicized and the fact was, the Commissioner himself had already breached his own ICAC Act by calling a Public Inquiry so he didn’t want to be publicly embarrassed by the truth then coming out.
So when the ICAC released details to lawyers for the accused of all the witness statements available for them to review, they conveniently left off the signed sworn statement that was in their possession clearing Mr Kazal and his co-accused of the serious allegations that had been published day after day on the front page of the Sydney Morning Herald and repeated in other television and newspaper news stories across the country.
If that isn’t enough to highlight the appalling nature of why this case should never have been allowed, the sole witness for ICAC who claimed Mr. Kazal did anything wrong was his former business partner who Mr. Kazal was already suing at the time in the Cayman Islands and UAE for fraud and embezzlement and to wind up their company links. Mr. Kazal’s co-accused just happened to be his key witness in that overseas litigation. Coincidence? Hardly! ICAC knew this vexatious witness was a disgruntled former partner and it was demonstrated during his testimony he had supplied false information to the Sydney Morning Herald. In fact, Special Counsel Assisting the ICAC, Mr. Robert Newlinds SC was so stunned by the testimony of their star witness he told him to stop lying and just tell the truth. Lawyers for the star witness apologized for his behavior claiming he was taking drugs without a prescription at the time. Yet the ICAC took the star witnesses testimony as reliable, kept the evidence of Mr. Kazal’s innocence buried and hung him out to dry with a baseless charge that the DPP said had no merit.
So NSW has a Parliament that allows an Agency to operate outside of the law being supported by a major newspaper that even when exposed as having done the wrong thing, just kept on publishing the false allegations dismissed by ICAC in more than 30 articles about Mr Kazal and refused to correct the record when Mr. Kazal wrote to them highlighting where their articles were false.
Any fair-minded person would have to question where the true corruption lies in NSW. When you have a State Government and supposed independent media whose role it is to hold the politicians accountable being the ones demonstrating an absence of all ethics and integrity they swear an oath to uphold, what are fair-minded citizens of that State meant to think about the future for the growing divide between the haves and have nots. Mr. Kazal has fought for more than 7 years to expose this corruption and has called for a Royal Commission to investigate what he feels are alleged misuses of public office being carried out by those with an agenda to protect an exclusive club who feel entitled to manipulate the system to get what they want. Enough is enough. For Mr. Kazal, this is something he will fight for until real justice is dispensed in the State of NSW.
