January 3, 2024
Two men in released group nabbed over visa breaches
Two former immigration detainees released following a High Court ruling last year have been arrested for breaching visa conditions over the festive season, including a man who allegedly broke curfew 10 times.
At least nine of the cohort of 150 individuals set free into the community after the court found their indefinite detention was unlawful have been arrested since their release, including four in relation to breaching strict commonwealth visa conditions legislated shortly before Christmas.
A 45-year-old Afghan man was arrested by Australian Federal Police in Merrylands in Sydney's west on December 30 and charged with 10 counts of failing to comply with a residential curfew imposed following his release from immigration detention.
The AFP allege the man breached the conditions of his commonwealth visa between December 15 and 28, with the offences carrying a maximum penalty of five years' imprisonment and a $93,900 fine.
He was remanded in custody after appearing in the Parramatta Local Court on New Year's Eve and is due to face court again on January 19.
Meanwhile, on Christmas Day, the AFP arrested a 38year-old Iranian man in Perth and charged him with one count of failing to comply with the curfew conditions of his visa on December 24.
Three days earlier the same man had been issued a summons to appear in court for "failing to ensure his monitoring device remained in good working order". He was due to face a Northbridge Magistrates Court on Boxing Day.
Coalition home affairs spokesman James Paterson has demanded the federal government immediately use additional new preventive detention laws passed in December to lock up high-risk offenders among the cohort released to date.
"How many former detainees need to be arrested before the Albanese government finally uses the preventive detention laws passed by the parliament before Christmas to protect the community," he said. "We didn't legislate them just for the fun of it." The visa conditions and preventive detention regime were rushed through parliament at the end of 2023 following the High Court's November 8 ruling that a stateless Rohingya man convicted of child sex offences who cannot be deported, known only as NZYQ, could not be held in immigration detention indefinitely.
New requirements included mandatory wearing of electronic ankle monitors and complying with a residential curfew.
Four former detainees have been charged with breaching these visa conditions since they were released. Nine out of 149 former detainees have been redetained.
A man was expected to be arrested in Victoria on an outstanding return-to-prison warrant over offences prior to being held in detention, while another former detainee, Sudanese refugee William Yekrop, was also arrested on a similar warrant in Queensland.
