Asia

Home page

Asia

Australian arrested over refugee boat disaster

12 May 2011 21:59 (UTC +04:00)

Baku-APA. An Australian was deported from Indonesia Thursday and charged in Sydney with offences relating to the Christmas Island boatpeople disaster that left 48 asylum seekers dead, APA reports quoting news.yahoo.com website.

Iranian-born Ali Khorram Heydarkhani, 40, was detained by Indonesian authorities on January 25 but only sent to Australia after overstaying his visa.

"He was arrested by the Australian Federal Police for alleged facilitation of the people smuggling venture that led to the tragedy on Christmas Island on the 15th of December last year," said Home Affairs Minister Brendan O’Connor.

Forty-eight men, women and children died when their wooden fishing boat shattered on rocks at remote Christmas Island, the site of Australia’s main immigration detention centre, on December 15 in a storm.

Another 42 survived. They told rescuers that the boat was packed with Iranians, Iraqis and Kurds.

It was the worst disaster involving an asylum-seeker boat bound for Australia since the sinking of the SIEV-X off Indonesia in 2001, when all 353 on board died.

Most of the 89 people-smuggling charges Heydarkhani faces are related to the tragedy, although they also include three other people-smuggling ventures, with each charge carrying maximum penalties of between 10 and 20 years in jail.

At the same time in Perth, three Indonesians appeared in court over the same disaster.

Abdul Rasjid, 60, Hardi Hans, 22, and Supriyadi, 32, appeared via video link from Hakea prison, charged with one count each of illegally bringing a group of non-Australian citizens to the country.

They will reappear before magistrates on June 23.

An armada of asylum seeker boats arriving on the Australian coast from Asia in recent years has become a sensitive political issue for the ruling Labor government, which has been accused of not doing enough to deter them.

Last weekend, Prime Minister Julia Gillard said she planned to send hundreds of boatpeople to Malaysia for processing.

In return, Australia would accept and resettle, over four years, 4,000 registered refugees currently living in Malaysia.

But refugee campaigners in both countries attacked the proposal, saying it would not stop thousands of desperate people risking their lives on perilous boat journeys to Australia each year.