The Northern Territory's longest-running coronial inquest is nearing it's end almost 18 months after it began. Today, former NT police officer Zachary Rolfe is expected to answer questions at the inquest into the death of 19-year-old Indigenous man Kumanjayi Walker.
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TVTranscript
00:00 Well, Zakharov was first called to give evidence back in November of 2022, about two months
00:07 into the inquiry.
00:08 But his evidence was cut short on that day.
00:11 He had filed action in the Supreme Court claiming a penalty privilege, essentially arguing that
00:19 he shouldn't be forced to answer questions that could lead to disciplinary action within
00:24 the Northern Territory Police Force.
00:26 Now that argument made it all the way to the Court of Appeal here in the Northern Territory,
00:32 but was ultimately unsuccessful.
00:34 He has also since launched an application for the coroner to recuse herself, arguing
00:41 that there was bias against him in the inquiry and thus the coroner should step aside.
00:48 She chose not to do that, which brings us here to 18 months after the inquest started
00:56 for Zakhary Rolf to be called as the final witness in this inquest.
01:01 However, he has flagged already in the past couple of weeks that he will claim privilege
01:06 against self-incrimination over a number of topics that he expects to be asked about when
01:12 he is on the stand.
01:13 So it's unclear how exactly that is going to play out over the next week or so.
01:18 But we know that this inquiry, which was supposed to run for three months back in 2022, has
01:26 now stretched to around 18 months.
01:29 Now that three months is quite a significant period of time for an inquest to begin with,
01:34 but 18 months now and counting.
01:37 So Mel, with this inquiry running so long, what has the coroner uncovered?
01:42 Yes, so Northern Territory coroner Elizabeth Armitage is really digging much deeper than
01:49 the night that Kumonjai Walker was shot.
01:51 So that was the 9th of November in 2019 that Mr. Walker died.
01:56 The coroner is looking much deeper than the shooting incident itself.
02:01 She's heard evidence about the culture of the Northern Territory police force.
02:05 She's traveled out to Yundamu and heard about poverty and housing issues out in the community.
02:11 She's really trying to put together what it was that put Constable Rolfe and Kumonjai
02:17 Walker on the same path to begin with.
02:21 We've explored text messages found on Mr. Rolfe's phone, body worn footage of previous
02:27 arrests that he had made whilst on the beat here in Alice Springs.
02:31 And so the scope of this inquiry is quite significant.
02:35 [BLANK_AUDIO]