The Australian government has repeatedly denied financial assistance to an Australian woman facing the possibility of the death penalty in the US state of Arizona, according to emails seen by The Australian.
Lisa Cunningham, 43, was taken into custody on August 29, after prosecutors announced they would seek the death penalty, having charged her with the first-degree murder of her stepdaughter, Sanaa Cunningham.
Sanaa suffered from severe mental, physical and behavioural conditions. She died in a Phoenix hospital in February.
An autopsy found the cause of death “undetermined”. After an 18-month investigation, Mrs Cunningham and her US-born husband, Germayne Cunningham, were charged with child abuse and first-degree murder.
RELATED: Australian mother facing death penalty in US for alleged murder of stepdaughter
RELATED: Australian mother facing death penalty in US for alleged murder of stepdaughter
Emails seen by The Australian show that Mrs Cunningham, a mother of four who grew up in Adelaide, has been pleading with the Australian government for assistance, but was told she would not get financial aid.
One email to Mrs Cunningham notes that her case had been discussed “in Canberra” and by “DFAT staff of the local consulate … and we are all agreed that you do not qualify” for financial assistance under the Attorney-General’s “special circumstances scheme”.
The scheme, which has assisted drug trafficker Schapelle Corby and Guantanamo Bay detainee David Hicks, is designed to “help people in special circumstances with the legal cost of Australian or overseas proceedings”.
“Assistance under this scheme will only be granted in the most exceptional of circumstances,” say the guidelines.
Mrs Cunningham is believed to be the only Australian woman ever to face the possibility of execution in the US, one of Australia’s closest allies.
When she pointed out to the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade that government websites suggested she would be eligible for assistance, she was told these were “guidelines only”.
The Attorney-General’s Department also administers a scheme for “Australians facing criminal charges involving the death penalty in an overseas country”. “Applications can be made to the department for grants to cover legal fees and other expenses,” the guidelines say. “Assistance is only available where the accused person is at risk of being punished by the death penalty.”
It says assistance will not generally be granted to people who:
• Can meet the cost without incurring serious financial difficulty;
• Are eligible for legal assistance in the overseas country;
• Do not have a continuing connection with Australia.
While the Attorney-General’s Department said in a statement over the weekend that the government “does not comment on whether it has/has not provided legal financial assistance to any individual”, The Australian understands that Mrs Cunningham has not received financial assistance.
A DFAT spokesperson told The Australian that the department was “providing consular assistance to an Australian in the United States, in accordance with the Consular Services Charter”.
“For privacy reasons, we are unable to provide further details,” the statement said.
Mrs Cunningham, nee Topsfield, was born in Adelaide, and moved to the US after meeting her first husband, an American serviceman named Russell Anderson, in Townsville.
The couple was married in South Australia. The two lived for a time on a US military base in Japan before moving to the US, where they separated.
She later married Mr Cunningham, who until last September was a detective in the Phoenix police.
Mrs Cunningham has previously worked as a guard in a women’s prison.
Each had two children before the marriage, and had another two together.
Mrs Cunningham has visited Australia with her children several times, and returned for her mother’s funeral.
The youngest two children are now in state care, and Mrs Cunningham has told Canberra that she fears never seeing them again.
Sanaa Cunningham, who was seven when she died, suffered from a range of serious physical and mental health conditions, including schizophrenia, a fact noted in her autopsy.
Australian relatives flew to the US for the little girl’s funeral, after Mrs Cunningham called to say she “didn’t know if she had the strength” to get through the service on her own.
“Lisa rang and said, can you be there for me?” said one family member who did not want to be named. “I said ‘of course’. I got the call on the Friday and flew straight out on the Monday.
“She doted on all her children. She just loved kids, even from when we were all very little, she was the one doing our hair.”
Two funerals were held, because of a dispute between the Cunninghams and Sanaa’s biological mother.
Source: theaustralian.com.au, Caroline Overington, September 10, 2018. The writer has twice won Australia’s most prestigious award for journalism, the Walkley Award for Investigative Journalism.
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"One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed,
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted." -- Oscar Wilde
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted." -- Oscar Wilde