Prosecuting the King, the Attorney General and a Netanyahu Advisor Over Genocide: A Yarn with Uncle Robbie Thorpe

The state of Israel has engaged local lawyers to represent it, on behalf of former senior advisor to Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Mark Regev, as the Australian Israeli diplomat has been charged with advocating genocide, contrary to section 80.2D of the Criminal Code Act 1995 (Cth).

The case is a private prosecution raised by Krautungalung elder Uncle Robbie Thorpe. The charge sheet has been served on Regev in Israel and it lists multiple instances in which he has advocated for genocide in Gaza, including locally on the ABC. The case will return to court on 10 December.

Thorpe is running another prosecution against Charles Windsor III. And on 19 July, the case charging the king with all five forms of genocide in Australia federal law went before Victorian Supreme Court Justice Melinda Richards, who’s adjourned the matter to deliberate upon whether it can proceed.

The final prosecution that Thorpe has put before the courts is against federal attorney general Mark Dreyfus, and as this was initially knocked back by the Victorian Magistrates Court, Uncle Robbie is attempting to attach it to another constitutional matter he has before the courts next Monday.

Genocide in federal law

Taking effect in 2002, the Rome Statue established the International Criminal Court and it contains the core international criminal offences. On having ratified this agreement, Australia was required to enact those crimes locally, of which it did under division 268 of the Criminal Code Act 1995 (Cth).

First established under the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, this international criminal offence comprises of “acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group”. And it has five different forms.

Section 268.3 of the Criminal Code contains the offence of genocide by killing. Section 268.4 contains genocide by serious bodily or mental harm. Section 268.5 holds the crime of genocide by inflicting destructive life conditions and section 268.6 contains the offence of genocide by preventing births.

The final offence is genocide by transferring children contained under section 268.7 of the Criminal Code. And all these genocide crimes carry life imprisonment.

Yet, Australia further inserted a law known as the attorney general’s fiat under sections 268.121 and 268.122 of the Code, which stipulates that if a genocide prosecution is to proceed, the federal attorney general has to greenlight it, or it is refused. And this decision can’t be reversed.

So, Independent Senator Lidia Thorpe has a private members bill before federal parliament, the Criminal Code Amendment (Genocide, Crimes Against Humanity and War Crimes) Bill 2024, which seeks to remove the AG’s fiat from atrocity crimes, so these prosecutions can no longer be blocked.

Prosecuting genocide

Uncle Robbie will be in court this coming Monday, attempting to have Dreyfus added as a respondent to a constitutional matter he has before the court that relates to Camp Sovereignty in Melbourne’s King’s Domain, so that the chief lawmaker’s participation in genocide might further be scrutinised.

Sydney Criminal Lawyers spoke to Krautungalung elder Uncle Robbie Thorpe about having papers served to one of Netanyahu’s ex-advisor’s in Israel, the fact that people on this continent are waking up to the ongoing genocide here and Senator Lidia Thorpe’s public denouncement of the king.

Uncle Robbie, you lodged a 24 July charge sheet against attorney general Mark Dreyfus charging him with the offence of genocide by inflicting destructive life conditions on Aboriginal people, contrary to section 268.5 of the Criminal Code.

The charge relates to Dreyfus’ entire time in office since 2007. This behaviour includes that the attorney general’s fiat remains as a block in preventing the prosecution of the crime of genocide.

This was knocked back by the Magistrates Court of Victoria, as the AG didn’t greenlight it, and the Victorian Supreme Court then refused to review that decision.

On Monday, you’re returning to the court, seeking to have attorney general Mark Dreyfus’ name added as a respondent to a constitutional matter before the court that involves Camp Sovereignty.

What does this involve? And how has Dreyfus been perpetrating genocide?

Well, from obstructing Aboriginal people from these laws. If you look at the 1948 Convention for the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, it’s got universal jurisdiction. There is no immunity and there’s no statute of limitations.

So, why have we got an individual, who is able to block and prevent Aboriginal people from accessing these laws?

It is hardly preventing crime. As you know, no one in Australia has ever been punished for the crime of genocide.

So, there’s a case there. Australia has obviously failed to prevent genocide.

So, you’re hoping the court will take a second look at the charge of genocide raised against Dreyfus? 

Absolutely. People don’t realise the gravity of crime scene Australia. If you have a look at the 1948 Genocide Convention, Australia is clearly guilty of everything in it.

In fact, there is nothing that Australia is not guilty of.

So, there is a bit of urgency about this. If you have a look at the condition of our people. It has been 250 years of unchecked crimes against our people.

This is an illegal occupation. There is genocidal oppression going on here. The colonisers haven’t got a right to make law for our people.

So, the court matter you want to add Dreyfus as a respondent to relates to Camp Sovereignty, which is a case that involves Melbourne City Council agents having attempted to put out the sacred fire and dismantle the camp earlier this year.

We have unceded sovereignty. We have a right to practice our beliefs in our own country. And if anybody is trying to stop us, it’s a crime against our human rights.

They tried to put out the fire. Straightaway we stopped them. And we made them put it all back. So, there is merit in what we are doing here.

It proves that we have unceded sovereignty. We have got rights. And that was enforced in the courts at that time, as it recognised that we do have these rights.

This is a path that not many people have walked down in this country. Australia has been able to get away with it. Australia is based on the idea that this land was empty.

We need to fill it all in and create these things. Our group isn’t flushed with resources. It is not like we are the Aboriginal Legal Service or funded by the state. We’ve got nothing.

It is just us doing this. We say we have a right to defend ourselves from this crime. And it is clearly the case that it is a crime.

That is what we are doing. We are going to put this out there as much as we can for as long as we can.

On 9 October, you went before the Melbourne Magistrates’ Court in relation to a private prosecution you lodged in August against former senior adviser to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu Mark Regev, charging him with advocating genocide, contrary to section 80.2D of the Criminal Code.

No attorney general fiat is needed to prosecute advocating genocide.

The Israeli state was represented at proceedings and its seeking to have the case quashed. Regev, an Australian Israeli, has actually been served with papers in Israel. And this has been adjourned until December.

This case appears to be more likely to get up than the others. Can you talk about what it involves and why this matter appears to have more legs?

It has more legs is because it is a private prosecution. It is a simple way of getting around the attorney general’s fiat, which this country is hiding behind and it breaches the international convention and the ICC Rome Statute.

You can’t have an individual thinking they can block genocide cases. And because Regev’s representation wants to take it on, the Israeli government, they’ve actually invoked the Genocide Convention in this country, where it has never been done before.

It is a unique situation, and a win already, in the fact that it is the first time the Genocide Convention will be used, where it has never been done before.

There is a lot of merit in it.

Regev is clearly guilty of advocating and inciting a genocide. And in this strange way the case has invoked the law and opened it up for everybody else who has issues of genocide in Australia.

So, Regev has actually been served in Israel.

He was served in Hebrew. There is an international service organisation that does that. That’s what allowed us to serve him. It was the good work of Dan Taylor, a lawyer from Sydney.

And we’re talking about a private prosecution that has sidestepped the attorney general’s fiat, which is the key factor.

Last time we spoke on 19 July, you’d just been before the Victorian Supreme Court seeking a judicial review regarding the Victorian Magistrates’ Court decision to knock back the genocide prosecution you were attempting to lodge against Charles Windsor in October last year.

Justice Melinda Richards adjourned the matter on the day to deliberate on whether to accept the case against Charles.

But in the meantime, in September, you sought special leave to the High Court on a question as to whether Justice Richards had the capacity to refuse to accept an affidavit you submitted that contained evidence of ongoing genocide. This could be decided on Thursday this week.

So, what are you hoping to achieve here? And how will it assist in a case against the so-called king?

I don’t think the High Court is going to rule in our favour. I think they will dismiss that.

But we are going to keep on doing these sorts of actions to keep this alive until we get justice for our people.

But Justice Richards could still pursue this case?

Maybe. Who knows what they will do. It is a unique set of circumstances. The time has come on all of this.

People might not care about genocide because that is only the Aboriginal people, and who cares what happens to them. But the genocide is causing ecocide, which is bringing everybody’s mortality into it.

If colonial Australia continue on this trajectory, you are going to commit suicide on yourselves and everybody else.

So, things are changing. There is a real law here. Our people represent proper law. Colonisers haven’t got law. They are invaders – trespasses.

Austra-aliens. Colonisers. They are lawless. They are mindless. Who knows what can happen? Time has come on all of this.

Speaking of Charles Windsor, your niece, Senator Lidia Thorpe called him out on not being the leader of First Nations peoples and on his part in the ongoing genocide against the First Peoples of this continent, as he appeared at the Great Hall of Parliament House in Canberra on 21 October.

In the aftermath, I noticed that all of my social media feeds had posts praising and thanking Senator Thorpe for what she’d achieved. And her act of protest went global.

What do you think is the significance of her action?

It was a great action. Aboriginal people, if we want to get ourselves heard, we have got to yell and scream. They are not going to engage with us in a civilised way.

Lidia wanted to hand a summons to the king, but he avoided her, so she ended up yelling and screaming, which had more of an impact then we could have ever imagined.

It went global. There is a whole writ we have for this king.

If you look at the king, there is a thing called royal assent on every piece of law that the colonisers make in this country. Royal assent. It makes the Crown responsible for everything that has happened to Aboriginal people.

So, they are clearly the ones with the targets. It is the British Crown. We need to knock them out.

Why do we need foreign management here? Why do we need foreign heads of state? Why do we need foreign multinational mining companies tearing the place apart? Just get rid of them.

It is a win-win if people do this properly. We can have an independent and sovereign republic based on the terms of references and conditions that Aboriginal put down that say what can happen.

That liberates everyone in the process. We don’t want to be a backward penal colony all of our lives, do we?

And lastly, Uncle Robbie, you’ve been running these genocide cases since the 1990s. It seems that the ones you’ve been running of late are getting a lot broader interest from the wider community as well as increased media attention.

Senator Thorpe also has a genocide bill before federal parliament, which proposes to remove the attorney general’s fiat, which is preventing these cases from getting up.

Do you consider there is a changing awareness about what’s happened on this continent that’s gaining momentum at present?

It is none-to-soon for the change to happen. Australia is basically a lawless, mindless, illegal occupation. Do people want to sort that out?

What sort of society is this? It is premised on crimes against humanity, monumental lies, war crimes – this is the foundation of Australia.

You want to settle that? You don’t want to be launching into the future with that. What are we going to tell our kids? What future are we creating here?

We need to do it for everybody. We need to do it for this land. I want to do it for my ancestors and my children’s children. That is my personal thing in it.

But you can’t call yourself a civilised society if you can’t prevent genocide. So, this is where Australia is. It is only going to get worse.

Australia is lawless. It is pariah state. And it is involved in genocide not just here but elsewhere around the world.

They are using Australia as a launchpad, like a British military outpost. That is what it is. It is disgusting. We should all do something about it.

And people are becoming more aware. That is all about education. Australia has basically been kept ignorant about the truth about the history of this country.

It wasn’t empty. I will tell you that. It wasn’t empty when these trespassers and home invaders came here and did what they did to our people. That is still very much alive in our people. It is called intergenerational trauma.

The world will see Australia in its true light one day, because you can’t hide the truth. The truth will come out sooner or later.