Paul Lampathakis

Paul Lampathakis is a Perth, Western Australia journalist. He is notable for being threatened with jail in July 2008 after he repeatedly refused to reveal the sources of leaked cabinet information to a parliamentary committee investigating a police raid in April on The Sunday Times Newspaper.

Lampathakis, who was 41 at the time, was warned that his refusal to answer the questions could see him jailed for up to two years, or fined up to $24,000.

Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance state secretary Michael Sinclair Jones said the threats were more typical of a police state than a democracy.

The committee was established after 27 police officers raided The Sunday Times and ransacked Lampathakis' desk, while trying to find the source of information used by Lampathakis to reveal that then-West Australian treasurer Eric Ripper wanted to use $16 million to pay for political advertising to help get the then Labor state government re-elected.

Lampathakis told the committee he believed the raid was an attempt by the Government to intimidate and harass him. "The latest incident was the second time this year that police came to The Sunday Times searching for information about the sources of one of my stories, at the behest of the Government," he said.

Lampathakis denied knowing the information had been provided to him unlawfully and said he published it because it was in the public interest.

The select committee is due to re-convene in March when a final report on the raid is expected to be tabled in Parliament.

In 2008, Lampathakis won the political reporting category of the Western Australian Media Awards for his series of articles on the antics of then WA Liberal Party leader Troy Buswell. Lampathakis also won the medical reporting category of the awards for stories revealing that a prominent Western Australian hospital had been leaving computers with confidential patient records in a bin, 40m from a main city street in Perth.

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