The private prosecution that Krautungalung elder Uncle Robbie Thorpe launched against Mark Regev, a former senior advisor to Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu, that charged the Australian Israeli with advocating genocide was taken over by the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions late on the afternoon of 9 December and the case was then officially dropped in court the next day.

The second mention of the Regev case took place at the Magistrates Court of Victoria on Tuesday, 10 December, and a representative of CDPP Ralene Sharp KC explained that their boss had determined to take over the prosecution and immediately drop it, as “based on the material provided”, there were “no reasonable prospects of conviction on the charge before the court”.

Uncle Robbie raised the case against Australian-born Regev in April, and a 14 August charge sheet was issued by the court, which was then served upon the dual citizen in Jerusalem.

Six offences in respect of the crime of genocide appear on the federal law books. Yet, the five core genocide crimes cannot be prosecuted without the greenlight from the Australian attorney general, and while the criminal offence involved in this latest case, advocating genocide, avoids the need for chief lawmaker approval, it has now been shown the state can prevent such a case as this regardless.

So, while the outcome of the Regev case was by no means a given, it was neither entirely unexpected.

And for Thorpe, this is part of a long game of attempting to get a genocide case up in an Australian court, but, falling short of that, the endgame is having the International Criminal Court take on a broader Australian genocide prosecution, which can only happen after all local legal options have been exhausted.

Crime scene Australia

“Australia has yet again shown it is both unable and unwilling to prosecute crimes against humanity, such as genocide,” Uncle Robbie told Pearls and Irritations, following the CDPP decision to strike down the case.

“It is clear that this reluctance stems not only from the political ties Australia shares with Israel and the United........

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