Briefs

Inquest a ’witch-hunt’

The New South Wales Police Association says the inquest into Sydney’s deadly Lindt Cafe siege was a witch-hunt seeking to blame police and it’s time to set the record straight. ‘‘There’s one person to blame – Man Monis,’’ PANSW’S acting president Tony King said yesterday. ‘‘He was out on bail despite serious charges, he was armed with a shotgun and believed to be in possession of a bomb.’’ King posted a 3400-word attack on the drawnout inquest to his 16,500 members yesterday, two days before NSW coroner Michael Barnes hands down his findings from the December 2014 siege. ’’It really should be done immediately not over this time frame,’’ said King.

Coral gets touch-up

Dive operators in the Great Barrier Reef were given rare permission to touch corals in the wake of Cyclone Debbie as part of efforts to save them. The head of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority said several creative efforts to save corals were made after the storm wreaked havoc on the Whitsundays region in late March. ‘‘There’s a short window when if you turn a coral over it will survive,’’ Russell Reicholt told a Senate committee in Canberra yesterday. ‘‘We lifted the normal ban on touching coral for the couple of weeks that opportunity was there and a lot of the operators did that and were grateful for the recognition there’s something they could be doing.’’

Arrests at gay sauna

Indonesian police detained dozens of men in a raid on a gay sauna in the capital Jakarta. Police spokesman Argo Yuwono said 141 men were detained for questioning in the raid Sunday evening on the gym and sauna. Homosexuality is not illegal in Indonesia but police said yesterday that those detained had violated Indonesia’s pornography laws. Indonesia’s low-profile LGBT community has been increasingly under siege in the past year, with prejudice fanned by stridently antigay comments from cabinet ministers and other high-profile Indonesians.