On 26 January 2024, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled on South Africa’s application that the State of Israel has breached and continues to breach its obligations under the Genocide Convention.
The International Criminal Court shall have jurisdiction in respect of war crimes in particular when committed as part of a plan or policy or as part of a large-scale commission of such crimes.
On 8 January 2024, during the ICJ hearing regarding genocide in Gaza, about 30 people attended the premises of FERRA Engineering in the Brisbane suburb of Tingalpa. They held banners calling our attention to weapons manufacture enjoying full support of state and federal governments. Government and courts alike are attempting to hide their complicity in the slaughter of Palestinian children in Gaza since the genocide commenced in 1948. Many of these children have been killed with BOEING ballistic weapons, attack helicopters, and fighter planes. F-35 bomb parts are manufactured at FERRA, licensed to do so by Australia’s defence forces. The parts are exported to the United States.
Donald Trump is attempting to impose tariffs on globalised weapons manufacture of bomb to force countries to accept that weapons are to bemade in the US. This boosts one of America’s largest industries, making weapons of mass destruction. Senator Jacquie Lambie, responded to Trump’s tariff on Australian steel and aluminium (used in weapons manufacture) by calling for the closure of Pine Gap as a retaliatory measure. Pine Gap is a vital component of U.S war fighting capability.
Meanwhile in Court 17, police prosecutor Harry COBURN delivered to the court yet another defective statement of particulars of the charges against the peace activists. Once again magistrate, Julian NOUD, sent COBURN away like a miscreant pupil, telling him to do better.
COBURN has altered the charges against the three defendants. Previously it was the charge of unlawful assembly which was causing the court so much grief. Was this a distraction from the major charge against one of the defendants to enter with intent under section 421 of the Queensland criminal code that carries with it a heavy prison sentence? I don’t know, maybe the lawyer do, or perhaps they are so engrossed in the technical detail that they too have lost track of the elephant in the courtroom: genocide. When defendant Pestorius raised the genocide, Magistrate Julian NOUD dutifully ignored it.
Who gains at Weapons Trial?
Specifically, who stands to gain by this prosecution?
There is not much in it for the defence lawyers who are doing the work pro bono.
The prosecutor gets his pay as does the magistrate, regardless of their denial of the genocide.
Ferra Engineering, a comparatively small firm, has lucked onto a very profitable business in an age of war. But the machines that make the bomb parts are very expensive and they are not manufactured here in Australia most of them are made in Germany. The Germans certainly are not going to offer their cutting equipment and software cheaply.
So weapons manufacture is a subsidised industry with the Australian government handing out money hand over fist to this local firm that doesn’t really employ very many people. That’s because it’s machine intensive. Part of the pretext is that it is for the Australian defence forces but that is not really true because the beneficiary is the United States military industrial complex.
Another beneficiary of this case is the Security and Counter Terrorism Command with DSC Jayce GILCHRIST and DSC Stephen MOORE, the main investigators. Police have given this prosecution the unimaginative title Operation Whiskey Clever. Were police reenacting a scene from ‘Breaking Bad’? By all accounts the investigation was sloppy and the charges laid unsupportable. For example, GILCHRIST went on a fishing expedition when he took out a search warrant on several different places of residence. Police even went after drugs confiscating ‘green leafy material‘ and a ‘bottle of pills‘. Hardly any of the material collected in these raids relates to the specific charges heard in court and very little of it will ever find its way into evidence. One of the FERRA staff, interviewed by GILCHRIST, gave the self-serving statement the protesters didn’t have all the facts by understanding is that FERRA has nothing to do with killing people in Palestine. Even a cursory examination of her employers own website, shows that Ferra supplies parts to Boeing for the F35 fighters and they are used by Israel in the genocide of Palestinians. Israel boasts that it’s 35’s are tested in the field in Palestine in what they term “mowing the grass.”[The Palestine Laboratory by Antony Lowenstein]
Another charge should be struck out for lack of evidence. That is common assault. The alleged victim did not wish to make a complaint. The whole case against the three is a beat-up. The prosecution is grasping at straws by claiming that there was physical violence or any real damage to property. How can police claim that snatching someone’s glasses is an assault under the criminal code? Their victim didn’t when interviewed.
Ian Curr
4 April 2025