Daniel Pedersen

January 6, 2001

By: Daniel Pedersen, Karl Malakunas

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

The Courier Mail

May 15, 2001

By Daniel Pedersen

BANGKOK: Former Brisbane woman Kay Danes’ psychological condition was deteriorating in her Lao prison, her lawyer has said.

Sydney-based lawyer Ted Tzovaras said Mrs Danes also had lost weight since being thrown in jail in the Lao capital of Vientiane on December 23.

“She’s said a number of times to both myself and consular staff `You’ve got to get me out of here, I just can’t stand it any more’,” Mr Tzovaras said, speaking from Vientiane.

The case against Kay Danes and her husband Kerry, an Australian soldier on extended leave who is also in jail, centres on the transfer of a small fortune to a Lao bank account in Kay Danes’ name.

The transfer occurred about the time authorities allege both finished and rough-cut sapphires worth millions of dollars disappeared from the office of a mining company for which Mr Danes provided security.

Mr Tzovaras held talks with Kerry and Kay Danes last Thursday afternoon. She spoke with her children by mobile phone and, for the first time, her husband Kerry also managed a few words with them.

“Kay is now in a worse state than the last time I saw her . . . and that was just last week,” Mr Tzovaras said.

“Kay has always been my main concern, Kerry is strong, both physically and psychologically, but Kay is weakening.

“Kay has developed a bad toothache, and the problem is there is no facility for treatment available at the jail and they are not allowed to leave the jail to seek treatment.”

ENDS

The Courier Mail

August 11, 2001

By Daniel Pedersen

JAILED Australians Kerry and Kay Danes may soon be released from a Lao jail.

They were sentenced on June 28 this year to seven years’ jail for theft of sapphires from a mine for which Mr Danes provided security.

They were also fined $260,000 — and ordered to pay the Lao Government $2 million in compensation.

At a meeting in the northern Thai town of Chiang Rai on Thursday night, a senior Lao official said the Government was prepared to release the couple and a release should by no means be viewed as a pardon.

He said the release would only be to smooth bilateral relations between Laos and Australia — a major aid donor to the communist country.

Australia has applied much diplomatic pressure in its bid to secure the Danes release.

The official said it was up to Australia how the release was handled, but it must be made clear that their release, if it eventuated, would not constitute a formal pardon.

Both the fine and the compensation would have to be paid as a prerequisite to their freedom.

The Danes were arrested in the capital, Vientiane, on December 23 last year.

Mr Danes was managing Lao Securicor, a division of Hong Kong-based Jardine Securicor.

Lao authorities allege he and Mrs Danes were responsible for the theft of sapphires from a gem mine in the northern province of Bokeo, in the heart of the Golden Triangle of heroin infamy.

The Danes say they are innocent and their lawyer, Sydney-based Ted Tzovaras, says they were caught in the middle of an international battle for control of the mine.

The officer said Lao and Australian officials talked about the possible release two weeks ago during the Association of Southeast Asian Nations Regional Forum in Hanoi, when Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer met his Lao counterpart Somsavad Lengsavad.

ENDS