Australian couple left to take rap
by Daniel Pedersen on Mar.23, 2009, under Laos reportage
January 6, 2001
JAILED Australian couple Kerry and Kay Danes have been left to take the rap for a series of charges laid by the Laotian Government against a sapphire mining company.
The Laos Government claims Kerry Danes was in full control of Gem Mining Laos, although he has said he was only its security chief.
Mine owner Bernie Jeppesen fled Laos for the Thai capital of Bangkok in May. He left Mr Dane to protect stored gems from the mine which has a potential worth of $2 billion.
The Laotian Government alleges Jeppesen signed over control of the company to Mr Danes. It has charged the Danes with hiding information about mineral extraction, taking 13kg of sapphires to smuggle out of the country, causing damage to the environment, excavating for sapphires without feasibility studies, and operating without permission.
The government says the Danes converted currency outside the banking system and breached tax rules.
A Vientiane newspaper said foreign reports of the Danes’ detention without evidence had distorted the truth.
In Bangkok last night, Mr Jeppesen said Mr Danes’ company, Laos Securicor, had been given authority to protect the mine. “We gave him full rights to safeguard our investment,” he said. “The government is clutching for straws.”
Mr Jeppesen said GML had always stuck by the law and the Laotian Government was involved in a battle to take over the mine.
Mr Jeppesen said the main accusers against the Danes were two shadowy Australians-former Melbourne journalist “Ted” Doyle and disbarred Melbourne lawyer Gary Shugg. Both had been associates of murdered Melbourne lawyer and conman Max Green.
He said battle for control of the blue sapphire mining empire began when Green secretly pumped $3.8 million in stolen money into GML.
Green was found dead in his Cambodian hotel room in 1998 after embezzling $42 million from clients.
Doyle is wanted for questioning by Victorian police over the murder.
After Green’s murder, his business partner Gary Shugg allegedly linked up with Doyle in an attempt to take over GML.
Mr Jeppesen said the pair first tried to gain control through a complex share portfolio battle in 1998. They then wrote a series of letters to the Laotian Government accusing Mr Jeppesen and his wife of theft and tax evasion.
The Jeppesens fled the country leaving Mr Danes’ Securicor to guard a valuable store of gems.
The Danes were arrested on December 23.
Mr Jeppesen said he believed Doyle had bribed Laos authorities to pursue the case, which would enhance the Shugg-Doyle team’s chances of winning control of the mine.
“My first priority is to free the Danes, they have done nothing wrong, they are totally innocent,” he said.
“Then I want Doyle, I’ll bring these crooks down.”
Kay Danes’ father Ernie Stewart said from his home at Birkdale, Brisbane, last night that he “wouldn’t doubt” the claims now being made over the arrest of his son-in-law and daughter.
Mr Stewart said the only thing he was totally sure of was that his daughter and son-in-law were innocent.
“If I thought for one second that they were involved in any way I would tell them `you got yourself into this mess, now get yourself out’.”
Mr Jeppesen had been in Laos for 12 years. A former Danish navyman he has also been a deep sea treasure hunter in the South China Sea.
He claimed that the case against the Danes was just another symptom of a wider crisis in Laos.
Mr Jeppesen also alleged that Doyle was a powerful player in South-East Asian gem circles and he believed that the rogue Australian had placed a price on his head.
Last year, a Melbourne inquest into Green’s death was told that Doyle and Shugg had used stolen money to buy and trade military weapons between former Soviet bloc nations and Cambodia.
An Australian Foreign Affairs spokesman said last night that the Laotian Government at this stage had only made allegations against the Danes.
The spokesman said that “unless there has been an amazing new development” formal charges had not been laid against the Australians, now in their third week in a Laotian jail.
ENDS
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"Secret Genocide is a scholarly book on the plight of the Karen of Burma. Author Daniel Pedersen writes about the secret genocide of the Karen people at the hands of the Burmese junta, who use murder, rape, forced labour and torture to quell their enemies. Decades after the Karen took up arms against Rangoon; there is no telling when - or if - their struggle for a secure homeland will finally be accomplished"
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