Eighty potential threats to public safety have been released from indefinite detention following last week’s landmark Supreme Court ruling which found they were unlawfully detained.
The mass release comes after a refugee who raped a 10-year-old boy was released into the community following the Supreme Court ruling.
The landmark ruling immediately led to the possible release of up to 92 non-citizens in custody who could not be deported to their home countries.
The total includes those convicted of serious crimes, who failed the good character test or who were feared to pose a threat to national security.
Immigration Minister Andrew Giles said on Monday that 80 of the detainees have now been released and given visas, including a Malaysian assassin.
He emphasized that the Australian Federal Police and Border Patrol were involved in the release of the detainees and their future supervision to protect public safety.
The Australian government has opposed the court’s decision, he told ABC National, but said they had prepared for the consequences.
Eighty asylum seekers have been released from indefinite detention after a refugee who raped a 10-year-old boy was freed under a Supreme Court ruling that indefinite immigration detention is unlawful. The photo shows Supreme Court Chief Justice Stephen Gageler
The court ruled in favor of a Rohingyan pedophile known only as NZYQ, who has been in custody since serving a prison sentence for child sex abuse.
The court ruled in favor of a Rohingya pedophile – known in the proceedings only as NZYQ – who has been in custody since serving a prison sentence for child sex abuse.
The Rohingya are a stateless Muslim people who live in western Myanmar, near the border with Bangladesh, and are persecuted there.
Because the Rohingya are not citizens of Myanmar – which considers them Bangladeshis and not a separate ethnic group – NZYQ cannot be deported there.
NZYQ arrived in Australia by boat in 2012 and had his bridging visa revoked in 2015 when he pleaded guilty to sexual intercourse with a 10-year-old child.
He was transferred to an immigration detention center in May 2018 after serving a minimum sentence of three years and four months and being denied a ‘safe haven enterprise’ visa.
Until the Supreme Court’s ruling, NZYQ faced the prospect of spending the rest of his life in immigration detention.
He will now be released into the community and the Commonwealth will pay his legal costs.
In the aftermath of the decision, the government admitted that 92 people were being held in similar conditions, and that up to 300 people could be affected.
NZYQ was transferred to an immigration detention center in May 2018 after serving a minimum sentence of three years and four months and being denied a visa. The photo shows Villawood detention center in Sydney’s west
The released persons had now been granted a bridging visa and were obliged to report regularly to the police or the competent authorities.
“That’s clearly one of the foundations on which we ensure the safety of the community,” Mr Giles told the ABC.
The immigration minister said the ruling had changed the law after 20 years.
“What we have to do now is deal with it the right way and do all the short-term things,” he said.
“These immediate actions to ensure the safety of the community today, while we are firmly focused on ensuring that in the longer term we can keep the community safe and enforce the laws of Australia.
“We also need to have a chance to reflect on the reasons the Supreme Court gave last week, and we don’t have those reasons yet.”
More to follow