Robert Xie spent four years and seven months incarcerated without a conviction. He was finally convicted after a hung jury in his third trial triggered a fourth trial in 2016/17. He was sentenced to life imprisonment for the savage murder of five members of his wife’s family in July 2009, including his two beloved young nephews under 13. Really.
As he stood to hear the verdict, he proclaimed his innocence to the court in his Chinese accented English. “I did not murder the Lin family. I am innocent.”
This book sets out to prove he was telling the truth.
OUT NOW IN PAPERBACK
Foreword by Stuart Tipple, Lindy Chamberlain’s former lawyer
So if not Xie, who?
In trial 3, the court heard evidence that for some considerable time around the Lin family murders, an international drug syndicate was using a convenient system to smuggle contraband into Sydney. Many newsagents had installed sets of post office boxes in their front windows. Customers could obtain their mail at any time of the day or night and were not under surveillance. The Lins’ Epping newsagency provided such a service.
Border control was aware of what was going on; they would periodically intercept articles and confiscate them. It is unknown whether they took into account the difficulty they were creating for the newsagents when an expected article did not arrive.
Several customers of the newsagency testified (in trial 3) that they saw heated exchanges between Min Lin and other customers from time to time. Clearly not all contraband was seized, or even detected. There is no doubt there was a syndicate involved in the process; that’s Detective Sergeant Maree’s evidence from the AFP. Substantial amounts of drugs were involved, over a lengthy period of time, which could result in life sentences for the culprits.
It is not difficult to imagine that the dealers harboured suspicions that it was Min – or perhaps his wife Lily – intercepting some of the packages for his/their own benefit. They can hardly contact Border Control and make enquires. Min could recognise the regular recipients – a threat to their operations. That is a credible possible motive for the killings.
The extreme violence and barbarity of the murders makes headlines around the world. What a clear warning to anyone thinking of cheating the syndicate.
The jury voted Xie ‘guilty’ 11 to 1.
Notwithstanding, the public is entitled to entertain plenty of doubt and consider the Lin family murders unsolved; a cold case. The drug gang got away with murder – and those who helped secure these wrongful convictions, which they did in our name, also got away with it. For now.
The fact that one juror held not guilty must evidence reasonable doubt
Andrew . In response to Peter v .What is this country going to do ? The First Fleet had 40 deaths, mostly on one filthy ship – the Alexander, with a police brain type captain. The privatised second fleet had 400 deaths of the obviously guilty ? Mostly the victims of private greed- way to go !
How many of these -sometimes children- were actually guilty ? – or just rounded up by the so-called police of the day – mostly in London. Then were done over in the courts by the proud ancestors of today’s fountains of wisdom . Not one money-making negligence criminal was held to account for the murder of these 400. The ancestors of some of us then set about murdering the owners of this land. We have carries on with this proud tradition..Hundred of deaths in custody- a national sport ? 40 years in prison for Derrick Bromley – not one decent person in 40 years – from our stinking political legal fraternity to fix this disgraceful wrong. When societies have erupted over historical time, finally had a gut full – revolutions -a new pack of mongrels take over . The English CCRC is a proven failure – Any Australian version would be orchestrated by the same second rate carefully installed legal types – with the similar occasional fix , to shut us up. Tuff on crime – we need more Manockism flexible forensics and Tedeschism DPPS – The scurrilous with guns hanging low on the hip – bloody cowboys.. Children in Police watch houses- Queensland Style- make ya a proud Australian Veteran – ever been on a jury ? A revolting experience !
I look forward to reading the deconstruction of the many trials & further about the newsagency” post box’s.
Jesus wept.
Andrew. – and those who helped secure”these” wrongful convictions ? (these) Was there more than one conviction in this Lin case ? Or are you writing about the overall shameful and underhand methods used to achieve wrongful convictions ? There seems to be the likely, and in some cases actually certain police involvement in the drug business. DNA fraud is standard .
David Eastman was innocent – did 19 years in prison because of police involvement in the drug business.
There has been some talk about police and drugs in the Sue Neill-Fraser and Bradley Murdoch debacles.
Tim Anderson twice Wrongfully convicted when police were involved in these murdering crimes ( Hilton Bombing and Robert Cameron) The QLD.Police involved knew Ray Bailey was innocent – but SA. hung him anyway. All involved in the conviction of Derrick Bromley knew that Manock was a fraud. The method used by the WA police future commissioner to achieve the death sentence for innocent Darryl Beamish is internationally regarded as torture..
A horrible disgusting thought springs to mind – Privatisation of the Police DPP Justice System.
Absolutely massive penalties and imprisonment for wrongful convictions !
Yee haw and OMG !
After some bizarre moments (especially on its incredible first day), the first trial was aborted at the request of the Defence when new “evidence” emerged. The second trial was aborted when the Judge’s health failed. Then there were a series of rather bizarre “Mentions” in which the new Judge tried (unsuccessfully in my opinion) to catch up on what had happened at the first two trials. Then there was a very long third trial which went on and on forever – eventually its inevitable Hung Jury verdict happened as predicted. Then came another series of even more bizarre Mentions with one of the hot topics beng the Defence’s shortage of money to allow the Accused to continue to be legally represented. The press weren’t there, but those Mentions were the strangest things I’ve ever been to in my life. Then Robert Xie’s good barrister was unable to do the fourth trial, which (unlike the previous three trials) I generally couldn’t attend due to work commitments. The fourth trial resulted in a guilty verdict.
Three , trials with hung juries or no decisions in themselves confirm the threshold of reasonable doubt. What is this country going to do ?…. Conduct 5-10-15 trials until they get the result they want. What Justice system. ????