WARNINGS from French spies that terror suspect Willie Brigitte had entered Australia slipped through the net because the alert was first picked up by ASIO’s skeleton staff on a weekend.
| "This is the ASIO watch officer. I'm away from my desk now, but if you leave a message at the tone I'll get back to you!" |
Documents produced by ASIO’s French counterparts reveal they first expressed concerns about Brigitte on Friday, September 19, last year. However, their "routine request" for information was sent on a weekend and was not acted upon by ASIO until staff returned to work on the Monday. A second French request a month later asking that Brigitte be placed on immediate surveillance was not acted on promptly because it was sent over the Labour Day long weekend. It took staff until Tuesday, when they returned to work, to start making inquiries.
"Hey, Bob! What the hell is this?"
"I dunno. I'll check it out. Any more coffee?" |
Brigitte was arrested two days later on a visa violation.The revelation came as a Strategic and Defence Studies Centre paper yesterday revealed ASIO lacked essential language and cultural skills and was heading for a "catastrophic" staff shortage.
"Hey! It's in French!"
"Go on!" |
The paper found ASIO had been downgraded in the past decade and overworked staff were more likely to quit than in other areas of the public service. "An ongoing loss of experience and corporate memory would be certainly catastrophic, particularly in the light of claims that ASIO is already lacking intelligence experience in senior ranks," researcher Christopher Michaelsen wrote in the latest SDSC newsletter. Attorney-General Philip Ruddock yesterday dismissed the apparent delays. A spokesman confirmed that it appeared alerts were sent on the weekends but were never followed up with any telephone call or electronic confirmation. "We do have people on call (on weekends), but again, if you were sending any urgent message, if you knew it was late at night or on the weekend, you would think you would call to just say, ’I sent this through - I want to make sure you got it’," the spokesman said.
| Must have changed the rules since I was a watch officer... |
The spokesman said that neither contact from French authorities carried any sense of urgency and the second alert even requested only that Brigitte be put under surveillance - not questioned or detained as a suspected terrorist threat.
| Well? Did you put a tail on him? |
He said Australian authorities responded in the best way based on the information received and alleged plots and links to al-Qaeda were not known at the time.
| Oh. They left that part out? |
Brigitte was interviewed by ASIO after his arrest but he refused to co-operate and was immediately deported to France.
| "Y'won't talk, huh? Alright, me bucko! You're off to la Belle France!" |
The spy group could have used powers to force him to speak or face prosecution but French laws were, at the time, deemed more effective in forcing a suspect to co-operate. |