SYDNEY: A key advisor to flamboyant Australian mining billionaire and politician Clive Palmer was arrested yesterday and charged over the alleged kidnapping of a bank employee on an Indonesian island.
Andrew Crook, Palmer’s media spokesman and confidante, was detained during a raid in Brisbane, the tycoon confirmed to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.
The Queensland Police Service said two men had been charged with “retaliation of a witness, attempting to pervert the course of justice and attempted fraud”.
“The charges stem from an elaborate scheme which police will allege was planned partly in Queensland with key elements executed in Singapore and Indonesia before returning to Queensland where the offences were committed,” they said in a statement.
The second man was named by media as private investigator Mick Featherstone.
Both were granted bail yesterday.
A warrant was issued for a third man, reportedly a multi-millionaire property developer.
Police said that in 2012, the Supreme Court of Queensland dismissed a civil claim against a bank by the third man.
Following the decision, it is alleged that he schemed to trick the bank employee into admitting he had provided false testimony, hiring the other two men to help him.
They lured the National Australia Bank employee to Batam Island off Singapore on the premise that he was going for a lucrative job interview, police will claim, reportedly using Palmer’s name as bait.
Once there, they attempted to get an admission from him that he lied and when that failed they allegedly detained him and seized his mobile phone, wallet and passport.
It will also be alleged that the third man then threatened the bank employee which ultimately led to him making a confessional video before he was freed.
Police said Palmer, whose party wields crucial balance-of-power votes in the upper house Senate, had nothing to do with the incident and was completely innocent. — AFP