Top PNG lawyer Greg Sheppard is seeking advice on possible legal action against the people who secretly recorded a conversation with him about “illegal payments’’.
He told reporters a short time ago he was studying the PNG legislation about such things and was seeking advice about it in Australia as well.
Mr Sheppard and Harvey Maladina, both partners in long established Young & Williams, were filmed on May 22 last year by the Global Witness anti-corruption organisation.
Part of the film was broadcast on Tuesday night on Australia’s SBS television channel and excerpts were widely published, principally by the Sydney Morning Herald newspaper.
The film purportedly showed both lawyers, separately, discussing business and politics in PNG.
Mr Maladina was shown discussing how close his brother Jimmy Maladina was to the Prime Minister. Mr Sheppard was seen to be answering questions about how to make payments to a government minister.
This afternoon, Mr Maladina invited the PNG media houses to attend a press conference at the firm’s office in the Investwell building at Gordon. Mr Maladina did not attend, instead Mr Sheppard showed up about half an hour later and made an address and fielded questions.
Mr Sheppard said he would be also sending a letter to the heads of the media houses to offer some ideas on the matter.
He told reporters that it appeared the filming may have breached the PNG legislation on Protection of Private Communications (a law dating back to 1973) and that it may also have breached laws in other jurisdictions.
He was seeking advice on these matters before doing anything further.
He said he had not known anything was wrong with the May 22 2014 interview in his office until Tuesday this week when news broke in the Sydney newspaper.
Mr Sheppard said he had an “open door’’ to visitors to his office, and it was “first cab off the rank’’ treatment. A well-dressed man, apparently English and using the name “Steve Andrews’’ and claiming to represent “New Botany Fund’’, had gone to his reception office and asked to see Mr Sheppard.
“I saw him for 20, maybe 25 minutes, we talked about music and other things,’’ Mr Sheppard recalled today. “He said he wanted to purchase property….but did not go into details.’’
“He was not a client and I’ve never seen him since,” he said.
Mr Sheppard said if anybody had committed a crime, it was the people who had filmed the discussions secretly and without seeking consent to do so.
“What it appears to be, and subjected to advice I am waiting on, is not the case that we have done anything wrong.
“The people who have done wrong are the people who took it without permission and then published it.