Michael Hand of Nugan Hand found

[Magda Hassan]

Even if it was [and I'm not totally convinced], I don't see where it follows that he committed suicide. They give courses in 'unconventional warfare' schools on how to make a murder look like a suicide. Why would the gun be wiped clean, and how does one do that after they shoot themselves? Even the location of the car [a small mining town, I believe, to which Nugan would have no business to be in] is suspicious. I'm sure Ozzie intelligence agents friendly to CIA kept what police work there was on this case from making any progress or reporting things correctly in the press, etc. They might even be doing this still. It wouldn't take the entire service - just a select few - to obstruct this being solved or anything being done about it.

No. Clearly if some one has your family hostage and threatens to kill them unless you kill yourself and you are there trying to make sense of the last moments of your life as some psycho is there handing you a gun and showing you how to use it that is not suicide. It is your last act of love and selflessness under extreme pressure for those you love in your small pathetic life. I can imagine it being one last desperate way he was able to leave a clue, at least for his family if not the police. Recent reading today indicates that the gun used was too long for him to reach the trigger and shoot himself and he had his shoes and socks on so couldn't have used his feet. No other tool like a stick was found that could be used. The location is a side road in a small town south of Lithgow which is a pretty miserable coal mining town (now jail town since the coal is not so big there any more) The main road to Sydney is not far from the side road he was found on and Lithgow station is the end of the Sydney metro trains. So it is out of the way but not inaccessible to Sydney by any means.

After bank co-founder Frank Nugan was found shot dead with a rifle by his side in 1980 (an inquest found it was suicide), Michael Hand fled under a false name. A warrant was issued for his arrest in December 1980 for trying to pervert the course of justice.

He should still be charged with this. It is a serious charge.

However, an ASIO cable sent from the Australian embassy in Washington to "Scorpion" the code name for ASIO chief Harvey Barnett in December 1982 *reveals the agency had information on Hand's whereabouts.The cable said it had received information from an Australian police team sent to the US to chase Hand that he was employed "as a (US) military adviser to the Puma Battalion involved in the Honduras/Nicaragua dispute".

"Hand said to be stationed on Mosquito Coast at Durzana, eight KMS south of the Mocoran refugee camp and to be known to * ** *Col*onel Jose Serra Herandes and Ricadicgo Pabillar, both prominent political figures," it said.
The cable said the Australian police had asked the FBI for help, but it could not assist. It says ASIO then told the police it "doubted" it could help bring Hand to justice because "ASIO had no direct liaison in Honduras/Nicaragua region and also there was no Australian embassy there".

FFS! Could they come up with any weaker statement?

At that time, the CIA and Washington were increasing military assistance and training to Honduras to exert as much pressure as possible on the left-wing Sandinista government in neighbouring Nicaragua. If Hand was helping to train elite troops of the Puma Battalion in Honduras, he would almost *certainly have been working for the US government and possibly the CIA. The CIA has always *denied it employed Hand.The suspicion that intelligence agencies went cold on prosecuting Hand was reinforced in 1991 when The Eye magazine reported that Hand was believed to be living in a suburb in Washington state.
It even published his alleged *address 1075 Bellevue Way but the revelation generated no *interest from Australian authorities despite an arrest warrant still being in place.

"The fact that Hand has been allowed to live the free life in the United States suggests he belongs to a protected species, most likely of the intelligence kind," Butt said.
William Colby, CIA director from 1972-76, and who became a legal adviser to Nugan Hand Bank, was found face down in the water on a solo canoe trip in 1996.

I'm just stepping outside for a bit. I may be some time....Said Colby before he paddled off in his canoe late one night.

An Australian Securities & *Investments Commission spokesman said: "ASIC does not comment on operational issues, but notes that this matter is well over three *decades old and we would need to satisfy ourselves any investigation benefited the public interest."
The Australian Federal Police declined to say if it would investigate, but said it would assess the new information.
The lukewarm reaction to the discovery of Hand this week will only fuel speculation intelligence agencies have deliberately gone dead on bringing the former US special forces Vietnam veteran to justice.

Former NSW Liberal leader and jurist John Dowd QC yesterday suggested the fact that ASIO's Cold War ally the CIA was allegedly involved might have lessened Australian authorities' eagerness to pursue Hand. "It may just have been inertia or maybe we were not upset about what the CIA were doing," he told The Australian.

In the late 1970s, Mr Dowd launched his own investigation of Nugan Hand, travelling to Chiang Mai in Thailand, where he discovered the bank had an *office next door to the US Drug Enforcement Administration.

Mr Dowd said "the British * *Sec*ret Service sent somebody" to *interview him about what he had discovered about Nugan Hand.
"They probably knew it was a CIA operation and they were interested in following what the Americans were doing," Mr Dowd said. "Hand got them (the CIA) interested in moving money for various purposes."

Mr Dowd said he believed that Australian and US authorities should still go after Hand now his whereabouts were again known.
"It was $50m, a lot of it Australian," Mr Dowd said. "A crime is a crime is a crime."

Pleased to see some one with some status in this is pushing for charges to be pursued.