Former Queensland premier Annastacia Palaszczuk’s tour promoting her new memoir will go ahead as scheduled, despite her surgeon partner facing rape charges after police raided his beachfront unit.
Prominent Brisbane weight-loss surgeon Reza Adib, 65, was charged by Queensland police last week with three counts of rape, two counts of deprivation of liberty and one count of sexual assault. It is alleged he assaulted a woman in her 30s at his luxury apartment on the Gold Coast on March 30.
As revealed in The Australian on Saturday, it is understood detectives from the Gold Coast Criminal Branch are investigating whether a stupefying drug was used in the alleged assault. Unidentified substances were seized from the unit during a raid on Thursday.
Ms Palaszczuk has nothing to do with the allegations and is understood to have been stunned by the police investigation.
The police raid on Dr Adib’s apartment came just hours before Ms Palaszczuk was due on stage at a free event promoting her new memoir, The Politics of Being Me, on the Gold Coast.
She is scheduled to appear at an event in Maryborough on Thursday, before travelling to Canberra and Melbourne later this month.
Ms Palaszczuk’s publicist on Sunday told The Australian that there had been no discussions around cancelling events.
The three-term former Queensland premier has also continued to promote her book on social media. “Another special conversation – grateful to everyone on the Gold Coast who came along last night,” she wrote on Instagram.
In her newly released memoir, Ms Palaszczuk writes glowingly of Dr Adib, whom she met at a race day in June 2021, describing him as a supportive and “beautiful, loving partner”.
“He supported me and regularly accompanied me to events, including getting up at 3am to join me at the Anzac Day dawn service, and numerous other community events,” she writes. “It was always such an honour to attend those events and it was even more enjoyable to have someone to accompany me.”
Dr Adib on Friday, accompanied by lawyer Dan Rogers, handed himself in at Southport police station. He was released on watchhouse bail and will appear in court on May 14.
In a statement last week, Mr Rogers said Dr Adib was “shocked about the allegations made about him and is taking the matter very seriously”.
“Like all persons accused of a crime, he is presumed to be innocent and intends to vigorously defend the charges,” Mr Roberts said. “Right now, Dr Adib is primarily concerned about the welfare of his family and his patients, and will do whatever it takes to ensure that they are looked after in the coming weeks.”
The surgeon and father of two founded the Brisbane Obesity Clinic at the Wesley Hospital in Auchenflower in 2004. The clinic’s public profile of Dr Adib describes him as being “well-known for his advanced skills and experience in bariatric procedures”, and notes he has performed more than 20,000 operations.
A spokeswoman for the Wesley’s parent company, UnitingCare, said last week Dr Adib was “no longer an accredited surgeon at The Wesley Hospital and does not operate at the hospital”.