Seven hits back over raids
Tension between the Australian Federal Police and Seven West Media over armed raids on the company rose yesterday with claims the search uncovered a hidden agreement with the family of Schapelle Corby.
Seven West chief executive Tim Worner said the AFP claim was false. He accused it of believing newspaper rumours and being "no doubt shocked to discover the truth" that no agreement existed.
He said a document the AFP said it seized was an unsigned draft that was never finalised and not in the scope of an original AFP subpoena, which only sought actual agreements.
Mr Worner accused the AFP of wasting time and money on the search, which happened a week into the company's dealings with police over whether it had paid Corby to tell her story.
Amid intense publicity on Corby's release and rumours she had sold her story to Channel 7's Sunday Night, the AFP served production orders on Seven West on February 11, the day after her parole.
Seven's lawyers were complying with the order and working with the AFP to determine which documents were required when the company's head office was stormed on Tuesday.
In justifying the raids, which were seven days before an agreed deadline for documents to be produced, the AFP alleged Seven failed to hand over all relevant material.
Mr Worner said this was not true and the search only uncovered one additional document which had not been given to the AFP - an unsigned, never finalised draft agreement which had no legal basis.
"Any claims by the AFP that they uncovered any relevant documents as part of their raid on Seven West Media and its premises are false," he said.
Mr Worner said a massive amount of public time and money was wasted on something that "could have been requested by email".
He said using 34 armed officers to fix a drafting error was a huge overreaction. Seven also alleges the AFP made misleading accusations about a company lawyer to get their warrant.
The AFP strongly denied the search warrants were obtained without proper authorisation.
It said they were legally authorised and AFP officers behaved "in full accordance with their responsibilities and legal obligations".
It said it referred Seven's allegations to the Australian Commission for Law Enforcement Integrity to ensure independence and transparency.
