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]
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