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Tuesday, December 24, 2024

Zachary Rolfe denies lying to jury

A Northern Territory policeman on trial for murdering Aboriginal teenager Kumanjayi Walker has denied lying to the jury about the fatal shooting.

Constable Zachary Rolfe, 30, has pleaded not guilty to murdering Mr Walker during a failed arrest attempt on November 9, 2019.

Rolfe fired three shots into the teen’s back and torso after he was stabbed with a pair of scissors in Yuendumu, 290km northwest of Alice Springs.

The former soldier has told the Supreme Court in Darwin that before he pulled the trigger Mr Walker placed his left hand on his police-issued pistol.

He also said the teen repeatedly stabbed Sergeant Adam Eberl and that he feared for his and his partner’s lives during the incident.

But that testimony has been repeatedly questioned by prosecutor Philip Strickland SC on Friday.

He accused the constable of making up evidence to “justify the fatal shooting” and rehearsing many of his answers.

“You knew you had gone too far. You knew you had been too gung ho,” Mr Strickland said.

Rolfe denied the claims during a terse and protracted exchange on his third day in the witness box.

The constable said he saw the incidents and “it was a completely dynamic moving situation”.

But he was unable to identify Mr Walker reaching for his gun or stabbing Sgt Eberl on the body-worn camera footage played in the court.

Earlier, the constable denied being obsessed with a video of Mr Walker in the lead-up to the shooting.

The court has heard Rolfe viewed body-worn camera footage repeatedly of a so-called “axe incident” involving Mr Walker on November 6.

It showed the teen violently threatening two officers in Yuendumu to evade arrest.

Neither officer was injured but Rolfe told the court Mr Walker was “lucky he did not get shot that day”.

Mr Strickland SC asked Rolfe if he became obsessed with the footage and Mr Walker.

“No,” Rolfe replied.

The constable also denied being “fixated”.

“You were certainly preoccupied,” Mr Strickland suggested.

“No,” Rolfe replied.

“You had seen it by then on multiple occasions, hadn’t you?” Mr Strickland said.

“Correct,” Rolfe replied.

“You hadn’t become preoccupied with the idea of tracking down Kumanjayi Walker?” Mr Strickland asked.

“No,” Rolfe replied again.

But Rolfe did agree that his supervisors had not ordered him to view the video.

Rolfe has previously told the court that he believed Mr Walker’s axe-incident had been “swept under the rug” and should have been taken more seriously by his superiors.

The court has heard that after Rolfe served in Afghanistan with the Australian Army he tried to join the elite Special Air Service Regiment and the NT police Tactical Response Group

He also applied to join the Australian Defence Force Commando unit and paid for a four to five-week private US military training course with Trojan Security International in Arkansas.

“In between the military and police I travelled to America for private training out of my own pocket,” he said.

“I wanted to upskill myself and continue to improve myself so I could eventually join the police.”

The Crown has conceded the first shot, fired while Mr Walker was standing and resisting arrest with Sgt Eberl, was justified.

But it says the second and third shots, which are the subject of the murder charge, went “too far”.

Mr Walker died about an hour after the second shot ripped through his spleen, lung, liver and a kidney.

The trial continues.

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