PERTH, Australia, March 23 (UPI) -- Four Australian men who admitted beating up a drunken man have been denied compensation for the time they spent in prison charged with killing him.
The men, known as the Walsham Four, had applied for $1 million Australian ($900,000 U.S.). But Jim McGinty, attorney general for Western Australia, said they did not deserve anything.
"They are entitled to the presumption of innocence, and I give them that presumption,'' McGinty told the Sunday Times of Perth. "But their behavior in misleading police during their investigations, the vicious assault on Phillip Walsham, and the fact that there was no wrongdoing by any public officers in the way in which the matter was investigated or prosecuted means there is no basis for an ex-gratia payment."
Walsham was found dead under a bridge 10 years ago. Alberto Magistro was acquitted of killing him, but Salvatore Fazzari, Jose Martinez and Carlos Pereiras were eventually convicted. An appeals court later released them.
"To see them get compensation would have rubbed salt in our wounds,'' Walsham's father said.
