18 March 2021
TOO LITTLE TOO LATE BY
TAMIL LEADERS AND THE UN
[A Sydney
solicitor who stole more than $6 million from the estates of his clients has
been jailed for at least six years after a judge said the conduct was motivated
by “greed, not need”.
Mark Leo O’Brien, 64, was a partner at
Edgecliff-based law firm Harrington Maguire & O’Brien when he opened a bank
account in August 2015 specifically for the purpose of receiving the funds he
planned to steal.
He stole from the $2.8 million estate of one
of his deceased clients, who had bequeathed $1.5 million to the St Vincent de
Paul Society, two other charities, and the Prince of Wales Hospital.
O’Brien stole the money intended for the
charities, made small donations to them, and used the letterheads from
correspondence he received in return to create false letters thanking him for
the larger amounts. He also created false entries on a ledger indicating the
payments had been made.
In late 2017, he stole from another of his
clients, who had given him power of attorney, while she was still alive. When
she died in early 2018, he proceeded to steal from her estate which had been
left to charity, as well as a $1.7 million deposit that had been refunded from
the aged care home where she lived.
He used the money to bolster superannuation
for himself and his wife, pay off a mortgage, give money to his children, and
buy a $3.4 million Bondi Junction home, which was then extensively renovated
and furnished.
On Tuesday, Judge Robert Sutherland said
O’Brien had been “to all external appearances” a respected solicitor when he
carried out this deception, which involved “the abuse of his trusted position”.]
When I learnt about the above in TV news I
said to my husband that I had been to the Australian Federal Police and the
Ombudsman but they dismissed my complaint. The details are :
From: Gajalakshmi_Param
<gajalakshmi_param@bigpond.com>
Sent: Saturday, 10 October 2009 6:55 PM
To: Tony Aliu Chambers <tonyaliuchambers@gmail.com>
Cc: info@fos.org.au; Steve_M.Martin@afp.gov.au; HAYESN@stgeorge.com.au;
ngo.unit@unvienna.org; R.McClelland.MP@aph.gov.au; Walter.kemp@unodc.org;
napillai@lycos.com
Subject: Bank Fraud Re: BARRISTER TONY ALIU
Mr. Aliu,
As I said to
you before and as my husband has been saying to you every time you rang him on
the mobile, we have handed your matter over to the Australian Federal Police
& the Ombudsman. I am copying this email to them also. You cheated us and
that matter is still with the Ombudsman. May be, you would like to forward some
evidence in relation to the fraudulent bank drafts that you sent us – because
of which we lost directly almost $5,000 and much more in status and
goodwill. May be if we handed the matter
over to the appropriate international agencies the results might be more
effective
Gaja Lakshmi
Paramasivam
---- Tony
Aliu Chambers wrote:
> Dear
Mrs Gaja Lakshmi Paramasivam
> How are you today?hope fine.
>
> Sorry i
have not contacted you all this while i traveled out of town
> and i
just return 2days back.
>
> I have
contacted the security company director and i have discuss with
> him
over the claiming of the one truck box which is to be deliver to
> you as
soon as every thing is been process.
>
> I HOPE
TO HEAR FROM YOU SOON
>
> BEST REGARD
>
BARRISTER TONY ALIU
This
morning I received the following:
As per my previous experience I ignored
the above as if it were from another planet offering invalid currency.
The painful experience came when I was helping
war victims. Yet when I learnt that the draft was a forged document – I did not
have anything to do with them. This helped me later when an extended family member
was trying to do likewise in the case of wealth left behind by a relative. This
resulted in me writing the book ‘Jaffna is my heritage; not dowry’
On 15 February 2009, I wrote to LTTE
leader under the heading Mother’s plea. (Appendix A) I stated in that letter:
[I feel deeply hurt that the Tamil community in London let our son
Murugathasan down]
Unlike with Mrs Ambigai Selvakumar – I identified
with the pain of Murugathasan as if it were mine. Murugathasan burnt himself to
death in front of UN Office in Geneva. I believe that by feeling for them when
I worked in war affected zones since 2003, I identified with Murugathasan’s
pain as if it were mine. Not so that of Mrs Ambigai Selvakumar. The difference
is that Murugathasan to my mind was a victim and Mrs Ambigai Selvakumar was an
heir of the perpetrators. There was no response to my letter including from
fellow Tamils.
All of the above are in the paper I
submitted to the UN . The Opportunity to share the pain with the victims happened
in May 2009. I experienced the pain with them and in turn I am contributing to
prevention. Every believer would do this for her/his side. The rest is for official
purposes.
Appendix
‘A’
ctober 2008
Mr. Vellupillai Pirabaharan
Leader
Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam
Vanni
Thambi,
Mother’s Plea
As a Tamil mother, I am extremely distraught over the suicides being committed by Tamil youths
abroad. This is not the time to look at rights and wrongs. We have a
humanitarian need. Appendix 1 might give you some idea of how I feel. I have been crying since then and I am
hearing about more and more such cases.
This morning, during community prayers to Murugan – our Highest Tamil – I cried and surrendered my work to Him. Then it struck me
that He did give us an indicator of what was going to happen. I do not know
whether you heard about it – but during 2008 Nallur Ther festival a lady was
burnt at the time when the Lord was being brought from the Ther on the outside to Vasantha Mandapam inside
the temple.
I went this time specially to attend
Nallur festival and I did feel blessed there. I did see Swami tilting to a side
but I thought that the guys who were carrying our Lord were rocking a bit too
much as happens these days, even here in
Thambi, when I go directly into a forum, I
feel as per my genuine work and belief. I believe in Nallur Kanthan completely.
In fact in 2003, your colleague Balakumar
(formerly of EROS) asked me how ‘Nallur Kanthan’ had called me over to
Nallur after Sivaraathri in 2003.
(Nallur Kanthan Ungalai Eppadi Koopitaar?). I am writing to you with full faith
in Nallur Kanthan – the Highest Tamil amongst us.
Please stop fighting and please surrender
your work to God. You may think that you have gone through too much to
surrender. I have gone through much pain and suffering in my own way. Some of
it has been due to the war. Most of it has been due to my own non violent
struggles for self governance in any environment.
The Sri Lankan issue is now beyond any
single person’s control. We have to find our own independence through those
around us and leave the rest to God.
That is what I did after I failed to ‘win’ Equal Opportunity through
non-violent due process here in Australian courts. I went to prison and felt
tortured after being labeled as a mentally ill criminal for just peaceful
assembly in a public area of a University. Many Sinhalese ridiculed me on the basis of verdicts
delivered by Australian courts and psychiatrists. They disregarded the good
certificates and took the ones that were in their favor and combined it with my
support for genuine Tigers, to call me a
terrorist supporter. I absorbed all that and continued to believe that you and
your group believed in your cause. I believed that about you because I believed
in my own cause for self governance through the intellectual path completed by
the spiritual last lap. I believed in the Tigers through the Tigers I worked
directly with in 2003.
But now my grief as a mother is far stronger
than respect for your belief in your chosen path. When I worked at
Maangerkerni during Tsunami, I cried
more with the mothers who lost their sons to the war, including through your
side, than I cried for the victims of Tsunami. I am not able to stop myself
from crying each time I dwell on how son
Murugathasan must have felt. He died an orphan. Of all the victims I feel most
for him. Yet, as person I first heard of him after he sacrificed his life for
the cause – to attract the attention of the United Nations. I therefore take it
that he is a deep investor in the cause of self governance. When we believe and invest – we connect
naturally and when one hurts, the other
hurts naturally. That is divine connection. If we give reasons as to why and
why not or whom to blame – then we do not feel that divine connection.
Reasoning must come after the need has been satisfied.
I have lost many members of my family to
the war – including two young ones – one being killed in Killinochchi. I cried
mostly for the two young ones’ mothers. I prayed strongly for that not to
happen to other mothers. I believe that all those who have common faith as I
would benefit from those prayers. I am however crying more for son Murugathasan
than I did for the young ones from my biological family. I feel a squeezing
pain when I recall how son Murugathasan must have felt. I do not know the pain
of bomb attack on my body. But I do know the pain from heat / fire. It feels
terrible. As a man you may not feel as I do. May be you ought to take some
advice from the mothers around you including your own wife.
After prayers, when I decided to write to
you, I went into Google to check some details. Then for the first time I saw my
name under UN label:
CHENKALADY
703,000 724,100 745,800 768,200 791,200 814,900 839,300
864,500 890,400. 7,823,900 ... GAJA
LAKSHMI PARAMASIVAM - Australian
Resource Management Consultant ...
http://sivathondan.org/sivathondan_proposal_budget.pdf
This was a confirmation from our own
Jaffna Saint Yoga Swami in whom I have
deep faith. Until I saw that message, I was thinking that UN would not hear us
but that we would have to find our own
solution at the local level and reward each other for our work. I feel deeply
hurt that the Tamil community in
In 2006, after I lost a major case in New
South Wales Supreme Court, I wanted to come to Killinochchi and live in Yoga
Swami Aashram where my brother in law was already living. But Swami appeared to
me during my early morning meditation and said to ‘help Tamils & Muslims’.
I have since helped many Tamils including those who are being tried here in
Like son Murugathasan, I also expected the
Human Rights Commission, the Australian Courts and the Australian Government to
hand out the decision that upheld justice and therefore the value of my
investment in Equal Opportunity principles as specified by them. If not for the
United Nations, we are not likely to have these principles of democracy and
therefore we would have not had expectations. It’s by going through the system
directly and accepting without violence the punishment they meted out to me –
that I learnt that they also did not ‘have’ the answers. Most of these
custodians of power merely uphold the outer structure of those principles for
others who want to step into those positions after themselves. May be you have
similar ambitions for your own young ones.
It’s we who sacrifice a part of ourselves that
are the life of those structures. God knows, and hence through the timing – God
shows the connection. Hence the Auditor General’s report and the UN including
my name through my work for Sivathondan Nilayam. They ‘happen’ and the real investor sees the
connection. To those who do not believe in Higher Powers beyond the seen, the
heard and the known – these would be coincidences. To the faithful these are
confirmations of our real work. It does not matter who gets the credit.
If I had had some direct connection with
Murugathasan, I would have done my best to influence him through my own
experiences – to not depend on those who
do not feel common faith with us but to surrender his work to someone higher within his own circle of
faith and leave it to them to find the solution. That Thambi was not you for me
or for son Murugathasan. To me that is God and to Murugathasan that was the
United Nations.
I fought for self governance through
Racial Equality and I lost money and status through the fight. But I have
realized self governance and am able to accept the weaknesses in my Australian
system and am continuing as an Australian, to do all I can to eliminate the
weaknesses.
If you truly believe in self – governance
in the land you feel is your home – then please accept the weaknesses in that
homeland and work in non violent ways to cure those weaknesses – first within
yourself and then in others. When you are strong enough for all of them and
bring the weak into you – they get cured naturally. When you depend on the International
Community to save your people, you are not independent, are you?
You have set the leadership where young
ones tend not to take advice from elders in the community. Unless therefore we
include young ones our wisdom is wasted on them. You are younger than I in age.
If you did not feel as deep a pain as I for son Murugathasan, then you are
young than I in self governance at the International level. Please surrender
your work to someone in whom you have greater faith than you have in yourself
and if you cannot find that person – please surrender your work to God. I cannot take any more of our children dying
due to unrealistic expectations and disillusionment.
Yours affectionately,
Gajalakshmi Acca
CC: All concerned
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