Senate Legal and Constitutional Affairs Legislation Committee, , 5:11:37 to 5:14:53
Questions regarding whether the Australian government previously believed Tarak Kamleh was deceased and when they first became aware of his presence in an Iraqi prison.
Topics: National security, Public safety
Speakers: Brendan Dowling, Hon Jonathon Duniam
Thank you, Chair. If I could come back to the issue of Mr. Kamlay, the doctor.
Thank you, Senator. I I'm aware of the media reporting. It's a tricky question to answer because I I'm not sure we thought what the media reporting said they thought was.
So we didn't think he was dead as a government.
I think over time agencies have done their utmost to maintain visibility of the whereabouts and activities of Australians who might be associated with terrorist groups. It is a very murky, opaque environment over there. At what point through the course of the several years, we were certain or not certain about his whereabouts or state of health.
Sure. Did we think he was deceased?
I I think I I personally don't have direct knowledge over the course of all those years. So I couldn't answer that question.
Would it be in the information in the possession of your team or somewhere else in the department about these people on your radar? There must be records kept of appearances on radar and disappearances, including perceived death.
So information relating to those individuals tends to be the product of information that might come from the operational agencies like AFP and ASIO, DFAT, which maintains obviously our embassy presence overseas and has uh some uh visibility of of uh some of these cases as well. That that gets aggregated through throughout interdepartmental uh arrangements. Um it's possible over over the years that there has been information shared in that group in relation to this case. And in fact, I'd say it would be what that information um said I couldn't recall and would likely be subject to um pretty uh sensitive classifications.
Sure. Okay. On notice, then perhaps if you could furnish me with some understanding of uh whether at all at any point it was the agency's view that he was deceased, and if that was the case, and it may not be, it may be the case that he was always uh believed to be alive. But if that was not the case, when did they first become aware that in fact he was not deceased and was still in that Iraqi prison?
Sure. We'll work with agencies and see what's what's possible.