Ironic twist as Bali Nine members leave Darwin and head home to their families for Christmas

The remaining members of the Bali Nine were escorted from Darwin to their home state by officers from the Australian Federal Police – the law enforcement agency infamous for their two-decade incarceration in a foreign hellhole.

Smugglers Matthew Norman, Scott Rush, Michael Czugaj, Martin Stephens and Si Yi Chen have all left the Howard Springs Accommodation Village near Darwin where they have spent the last four days after landing in Australia on Sunday.

Czugaj was seen boarding a Brisbane-bound plane early on Friday morning with a phalanx of heavily armed AFP officers trying to hide him from waiting media.

AFP officers reportedly threatened a journalist The Australian with ‘further action’ if photos were taken in the terminal, despite there being no law against the practice.

Ironically, it was the AFP that tipped off their Indonesian counterparts in April 2005 to the group’s plans to smuggle 8.3kg of heroin from Denpasar airport back to Australia.

The infamous group ultimately spent twenty years in an Indonesian cell, some with the death penalty hanging over their heads.

Czugaj, who wore dark glasses, a white face mask, a cap and a blue collared shirt, declined to speak to the media after landing in Brisbane.

He was seen walking arm in arm with a blonde female relative who tried to push cameras away as they left the airport.

“Where’s daddy’s car, is daddy the white one?” you heard Czugaj say.

Meanwhile, Matthew Norman and Si Yi Chen reportedly arrived at Gate 10 at Melbourne Airport at 6.50am on Friday where they were greeted by a small group of family members.

Neither commented to the waiting media.

Norman is about to move into a $4 million waterfront mansion in the seaside town of Torquay – a big change from the squalid prison cell in Bali he used to call home.

Martin Stephens flew to Sydney where he was also assisted by AFP officers.

In 2005, Lee Rush, father of jailed Bali Nine member Scott Rush, contacted the Australian Federal Police requesting that his son be prevented from leaving Australia, desperate to prevent him from becoming involved in any drug activity.

The AFP forwarded that information to Indonesian authorities, who attacked the group and arrested them at the airport.

Rush’s lawyer claimed in 2005 that the AFP had abandoned promises to stop the group from leaving Australia, instead flying them to a country they knew might execute the smugglers.

In subsequent arrests at Bali’s Denpasar airport and other locations in Indonesia, the plot was foiled and leaders Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran were sentenced to death. Both were executed by firing squad in April 2015.

The same year, the AFP denied moral complicity in that sentence, saying Indonesian authorities acted on more information about the group than just the concerned father’s tip.

“I want to take the pressure off Scott Rush’s father,” AFP Commissioner Andrew Colvin said at a news conference.

‘It is often reported that his tip led to this. That didn’t happen. I sympathize with Mr. Rush that it is portrayed that way.

“The AFP was already aware of, and had begun investigating, what we believe was a syndicate actively recruiting couriers to import narcotics into Australia at the time Mr Rush had contact with the AFP.”

Commissioner Colvin also emphasized that there was not enough evidence to arrest the Bali Nine members before they left Australia, and that allowing them to travel exposed the wider syndicate.

‘We were working with a very incomplete picture at the time. “We didn’t know everyone involved, we didn’t know all the plans, or even what the illegal product was likely to be,” Commissioner Colvin said.

He said it was “operationally appropriate” for the AFP to then cooperate with and seek assistance from Indonesia.

Commissioner Colvin said it is beyond their jurisdiction to ask Indonesian authorities to allow the drug couriers to fly back to Australia and arrest them there.

“This is a harsh reality for Australians who go abroad and become involved in serious crimes,” he said.

Subsequently, AFP Deputy Commissioner Michael Phelan indicated that the AFP needed more information about the wider syndicate.

“To get them to come back to Australia, we might have taken a few mules, but we couldn’t have had any evidence relating to the wider syndicate,” he said.

However, Mr Phelan admitted he felt conflicted about passing on the information to the Indonesians.

“It’s been bothering me for 10 years now, and every time I look back I still think it’s a difficult decision,” he said.

“But given what I knew at the time, and what our officers knew, it would take a lot of convincing for me to make a different decision.”

“I have seen the misery that drugs cause to tens of thousands of families in this country.”

Mr Phelan said he was under no illusions about what handing over the information could mean.

“Yes, I knew very well that by handing over the information, requesting surveillance and asking for evidence collected, they would take action and expose them to the death penalty if they found them in possession of drugs,” said he.

“I knew that, I went in with an open mind.”

Of the other Bali Nine members arrested in the original bust, Tan Duc Thanh Nguyen died of cancer in 2018, while Renae Lawrence was released that year after her life sentence was reduced to 20 years on appeal.