Australia has developed a reputation for being a safe haven for war criminals attempting to avoid prosecution, a former war crimes investigator said yesterday amid media reports that as many as 30 people accused of crimes against humanity have lived here freely.
Former deputy prosecutor at the UN War Crimes Tribunal at The Hague, Graham Blewitt, said some "perpetrators are being allowed to roam free in this country without any fear."
"I believe that Australia has a reputation amongst those who have been involved in war crimes as a safe haven," he told ABC radio.
"You are not going to be prosecuted and frankly that is a reputation that Australia should not be prepared to wear," he said.
Saddam's guard
Blewitt, formerly the head of an Australian unit investigating Nazi war criminals, was responding to a report in the Sydney Morning Herald that a member of deposed Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein's family and personal security force, had been given temporary residency here.
Oday Adnan al Tekriti, 38, was initially refused a visa after he arrived in the country six years ago because immigration officials found serious reasons to believe he had committed crimes against humanity.
But the visa refusal was overturned, and he has been given temporary safe haven in the southern city of Adelaide where he lives with his wife, an Australian doctor.
Speaking in parliament yesterday, Prime Minister John Howard said the immigration department had not wanted to give al Tekriti a temporary residency visa, but the decision was overturned by the independent body of review, the Administrative Appeals Tribunal.
"I'm concerned about these reports," Howard said, adding that he had asked for advice on whether further action could be taken by the government.
Blewitt said there had been previous instances where Canberra had allowed some people into the country because of the potential for them to give Australian authorities valuable intelligence information.
"It could well be that this chap is also involved in supplying information and intelligence," he said.
Blewitt said he had enough anecdotal evidence to suggest that there were mass murderers, torturers and other criminals living in Australia.
"There are some nasty people out there," he said.
"They put on a cloak of respectability when they get here and just subsume themselves into the Australian way of life. We shouldn't allow that to happen," he added.
The Sydney Morning Herald reported that as many as 30 war criminals from Sri Lanka, Lebanon, Nepal, Sierra Leone, Afghanistan, Iraq, Turkey and India had been investigated by Australian immigration officials over the past 10 years and refused asylum, but lived here freely until their appeals were heard.
The whereabouts of several are not known.
Blending in
There was no evidence any of the men found to be war criminals by Australian authorities had ever had to stand trial overseas, the Herald said.
Among the cases cited by the Herald were a former Maoist rebel from Nepal now working as an accountant in Sydney, a one-time member of the Lebanese security service who reportedly admitted torturing detainees and a Sri Lankan naval officer who allegedly told immigration officials he participated in a 1993 massacre of civilians in a refugee camp.
Other countries where immigration officers found that visa applicants allegedly committed atrocities included Bangladesh, Algeria, Myanmar and the former Yugoslavia, it said.
Blewitt said because of a lack of publicity, many asylum seekers are allowed to live freely in Australia until they have exhausted the appeals process and are often able to blend into society where they take jobs, study and marry, thus strengthening their claims for residency.
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