Australian police won't charge reporter after leak probe

CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — Australian police announced on Wednesday that they had decided against charging a journalist over a newspaper article she wrote more than two years ago following a high-profile investigation that triggered a national storm over press freedom.

Australian Federal Police Deputy Commissioner Ian McCartney said he had decided that no one would be charged following an investigation that spanned 25 months because of a “lack of evidence.”

Annika Smethurst’s article, citing “top secret letters” between the heads of the Defense and Home Affairs departments, reported plans to create new espionage powers that would allow an intelligence agency to spy on Australian citizens for the first time. It was published in News Corp. Australia's Sunday papers on April 29, 2018.

Australian Federal Police responded with raids on Smethurt’s Canberra home on June 4 last year with warrants to search her computer, phone and home. The next day, police raided Australian Broadcasting Corp.’s Sydney headquarters over unrelated leaked government documents.

ABC journalists Dan Oakes and Sam Clark — who reported in 2017 that Australian troops had killed unarmed men and children in Afghanistan in a potential war crime — are still under “active investigation,” McCartney said.

The raids brought rival Australian media organizations together to demand more press freedom and guarantees that reporters would not risk jail over public interest journalism.

Media organizations argue that press freedoms have been eroded by more than 70 counterterrorism and security laws passed by Parliament since the 9/11 attacks in the U.S.

News Corp. Australasia executive chairman Michael Miller said the police decision to drop the case showed why the law reforms championed by...