AUSTRALIA: Ms Pauline Hanson and her co-founder of Australia's anti-immigration party One Nation, Mr David Ettridge, were released from prison following an appeal last night.
Ms Hanson immediately pledged to help people who have been "wrongly imprisoned" after the Queensland Court of Appeal upheld their legal challenge against electoral fraud convictions.
Ms Hanson and Mr Ettridge had been in jail since August 20th when they were found guilty of fraudulently registering a political party and jailed for three years. Ms Hanson was also convicted for fraudulently receiving almost €300,000 in electoral aid from the government.
The court quashed their convictions, set aside both sentences and ruled that the indictments be amended and an acquittal be recorded.
"I've seen a system that has failed me and my concern is how many other innocent women . . . and men that are actually behind bars that shouldn't be there," an emotional Ms Hanson told the large group of reporters that had gathered outside the prison awaiting her release.
"I'm thinking seriously about this, that I'd like to put out a call to retired solicitors, judges, legal people, to give up their time to work with me to speak to these people who have been wrongly imprisoned," said Ms Hanson.
The central tenet to the prosecution's case had been that a list of names used to register the One Nation party in 1998 was not a list of members but just a group of supporters who had no rights. This list of names had been used to get electoral funding. Yesterday, however, the three-judge panel rejected this argument.