Filmmaker breaks decades of silence over Yolŋu clan leader's alleged murder by police
George Gittoes holds a spear that was used to recreate the killing of Albert McColl in his documentary Warriors and Lawmen. (Supplied: Hellen Rose)
In short:
Filmmaker George Gittoes says a former NT police officer told him he saw his colleagues taking Dhakiyarr Wirrpanda out into Darwin Harbour to shoot him after the clan leader's acquittal over the killing of a fellow officer in 1934.
Gittoes says the officer — a family friend — swore him to secrecy out of loyalty to the alleged killers, who were still alive at the time and could have been charged with Dhakiyarr's murder.
What's next?
After breaking 40 years of silence, the documentarian says he would be prepared to testify at a potential coronial inquest about what he was told now that everyone involved has died.
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers are advised that this story contains the name and image of an Indigenous person who has died, used with the permission of their family.
A documentary maker who heard eyewitness testimony that Northern Territory police officers murdered a Yolŋu clan leader and dumped his body in Darwin Harbour has broken four decades of silence.
Dhudi-Djapu man Dhakiyarr Wirrpanda mysteriously disappeared in 1934, after first being convicted — and then acquitted on appeal in the High Court — of the murder of NT police constable Albert McColl in Arnhem Land the previous year.
Dhakiyarr's disappearance was officially investigated for the first time in 2024, with the NT coroner in March this year finding the circumstances of his death "cannot now be ascertained with certainty".
Dhudi-Djapu clan leader Dhakiyarr Wirrpanda (centre) on his way to Darwin from Arnhem Land to face trial for the alleged murder of NT police constable Albert McColl. (ABC News: Tristan Hooft)
But 40 years earlier, war artist and filmmaker George Gittoes interviewed witnesses from the time, including trepanger Fred Gray and former NT police officer Joe Doyle, for his documentary Warriors and Lawmen.
In the film, Mr Gray told Gittoes he escorted Dhakiyarr to Darwin to face justice for the spearing of Constable McColl to head off "a punitive expedition" involving "a lot of killings" in retribution.
Mr Gray said when Dhakiyarr later disappeared following his successful appeal, it was "generally assumed by most people around Darwin at the time" that he was "taken out into the harbour and either shot or dumped into the harbour".
But what Gittoes left out of the film was explosive testimony from Mr Doyle, who told him privately that he personally witnessed his fellow officers doing exactly that.
The filmmaker told the ABC the veteran officer was a family friend of his who was "prepared to tell me, as a mate of my father, things that he'd never told anyone else".
"He was there when Dhakiyarr was taken out to a boat," he said.
Joe Doyle featured in George Gittoes's 1985 documentary Warriors and Lawmen. (Supplied: George Gittoes)
"He wasn't on the boat, but he knew what was going to happen when police took him out on a boat and killed him and put him in [Darwin Harbour], and then he heard them bragging about it when they got back.
"He told me most definitely, as a fellow officer, that Dhakiyarr was murdered and his body was put in the bay."
Gittoes said Mr Doyle swore him to secrecy as the officers involved were still alive at the time and "could still be charged with what they'd done".
"He only told me that as a personal thing because he'd only just retired from the police force," he said.
Dhakiyarr was last seen by the Reverend Alf Dyer (left) at Darwin's Kahlin Compound in 1934, after his death sentence was overturned by the High Court. (ABC News: Tristan Hooft)
"Of course he has loyalties, as all police do to one another, and I would not have put it in the film out of respect to him as well.
"But now that he's gone I'm prepared to be witness to the fact that he told me that very clearly."
Calls for truth-telling about the NT's dark past
NT MLA Yiŋiya Mark Guyula is a Yolŋu man whose electorate of Mulka borders the Dhudi-Djapu traditional homeland of Dhuruputjpi.
He says he has never believed the only other popular theory about Dhakiyarr's disappearance.
"He is a strong man, if he would have fell in the water, he would have swam across, he knew how to hunt, he knew how to live in the waters and survive," he said.
"That's why people don't believe that something, a crocodile, or whatever, happened to him."
Mr Guyula has joined calls from Dhakiyarr's grandson Dhukal Wirrpanda for a reconciliation centre to be built in his grandfather's name.
Yiŋiya Mark Guyula says his paternal grandfather saw his maternal grandfather shot and killed by a man on horseback in a colonial massacre. (ABC News: Michael Franchi)
"He's a fighter, he's a warrior and so people are still saying those people responsible for taking him away, they need to tell the story, open and transparent. There needs to be truth-telling and this is what people are calling for," he said.
Mr Guyula — whose own grandfather was murdered in a colonial massacre — said the centre could serve as a memorial to all Aboriginal Territorians killed in settler violence.
"My other grandfather was just nearby and then they heard a shot go off just a few metres away and he ran over," he said.
Dhukal Wirrpanda wants to see the NT government help establish a makarrata and reconciliation centre in Dhakiyarr’s name, where his descendants can share their knowledge of culture and law. (ABC News: Pete Garnish)
"My grandfather ran over, father's father, to go and find out what had happened and he saw this man on horseback got off and started dragging my other grandfather too and just covered him up.
"Those people lived there and these are the massacres that happened; some are very, very untold stories.
"They need to be shown what happened, they need to be told, told what happened, way back when and it is still going on."
Filmmaker's secret burden
Gittoes has also thrown his support behind Mr Wirrpanda's vision for the Dhakiyarr Centre for Reconciliation, which would be funded by, in Mr Wirrpanda's words, "fair compensation from the state who killed him".
"Knowing that community, I know that they're damaged by the fact that there's never been any full recognition that Dhakiyarr was killed," he said.
"It sort of gave them a lesson that there can be no justice for First Nations people in Australia, and that stayed with them — that's the folklore that little children in the community learn.
"So it would be wonderful if there could be some sense of justice and recompense to that community."
George Gittoes says he still carries "a little bit of guilt" after keeping Joe Doyle's secret for four decades. (Supplied: Hellen Rose)
Gittoes says it is part of the reason he decided to come forward after so many years and finally reveal what he knows, along with the fact he was never contacted by the coroner's investigator despite being prepared to testify at an inquest.
"I've carried this secret all these years and I care about that community, and there's a little bit of guilt on my behalf that I couldn't have done more," he said.
The NT government has said it will "take Dhukal Wirrpanda's proposal into consideration" and "refer it to the relevant department for review".
NT Coroner Elisabeth Armitage did not respond to a request for comment.