Abu Ghraib one day, Queensland the next

“Renton was convicted primarily on the DNA evidence,” Catalyst researcher Robyn Smith recalled. “Renowned forensic scientist Professor Barry Boettcher later investigated that evidence and felt that the interpretation by the Queensland forensic scientist was flawed. And there was a good chance that Renton had been wrongfully convicted. We wanted to do an interview with him but we were denied access.”

Undeterred by QDCS’s refusal the Catalyst team went ahead with their investigation into Renton’s conviction and uncovered further evidence that pointed towards his innocence. The program ‘A Shadow of Doubt’ went to air in June 2002 and subsequently won both national and international awards for investigative scientific journalism. Despite the media investigation and the evidence of Australia’s foremost DNA expert Renton remains in prison.

The official double standards employed by QDCS highlights their attempt to contain or filter all information flowing from the State prisons. Places where men like Brenden James Abbott (The Postcard Bandit) has remained a political prisoner in solitary confinement and sensory deprived since 1998 because he embarrassed Queensland politicians by escaping from the supposedly escape-proof B Block inside the Sir David Longland Correctional Centre at Wacol. Places like the $120 million Wolston Correctional Centre built especially by the Queensland government to house male prisoners convicted of child sex offences and male prisoner/criminal informers before they are fast-tracked through the system.

But, more importantly, it is places like the killing fields of the Sir David Longland Correctional Centre where over thirty men have died unnatural deaths during the last decade that draws a chilling parallel to Abu Ghraib. (An unnatural death is suicide, drug overdose or murder. They are termed unnatural deaths inside prison because prison murders can also be staged to look like suicide or drug overdoses). They are deaths that have been swept under the carpet of Queensland’s prisoneaucracy because the media are refused access and have to rely on the information drip-feed supplied QDCS Media Liaison. Until the information tourniquet is removed from the Queensland prison system incidents like those that occurred inside Abu Ghraib will continue to occur inside Queensland prisons.