A man accused of organizing a people-smuggling voyage which led to the deaths of more than 350 refugees is to go on trial in Brisbane this week in a case which will raise questions about Australia's hardline immigration policy.
The drownings remain a sensitive political issue, not least because they happened during the biggest maritime surveillance operation in the country's history. Despite intelligence suggesting the boat was dangerously overloaded, no rescue mission was ever sent out.
The accused is an Iraqi refugee, Khaleed Daoed, 35, alleged to have helped recruit passengers for the voyage of the Siev-X.
The Indonesian fishing boat sank between Java and northwestern Australia in October, 2001, killing all but 45 of the passengers on board. The Siev-X left Bandar Lampung in southern Sumatra on Oct. 18, 2001 bound for Christmas Island, an Australian territory 17,120km west of Darwin. The 30m wooden fishing boat, whose three decks had a combined area smaller than a standard tennis court, was loaded with 421 passengers who had each paid around US$1,000 for their passage.
A group of 23 Afghan Hazara on board were so concerned about the risk of sinking that they got off the boat as it passed through the Sunda straits near Java. The day after it set sail, the boat sank in stormy waters 120km south of Java, killing 146 children, 142 women and 65 men.
Tony Kevin, a former Australian ambassador to Poland and Cambodia who has campaigned for a judicial inquiry into the incident, said the government viewed unstable boats as a border protection problem rather than as potential maritime emergencies.
Australian police officers in Jakarta at the time cooperated with Indonesian police in organizing "strike teams" to prevent people-smuggling boats departing.
However, Kevin Enniss, an informant and self-confessed people smuggler, has admitted on Australian television that he had paid Indonesians to scuttle refugee boats close to shore as a deterrent.
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