Cash payments allegedly made by Australian Customs to the crew of an asylum seeker boat have disappeared ahead of the crew’s trial.
An Indonesian court on Rote Island was told that Australian Customs officials paid $US30,000 to the crew of an asylum seeker boat so that they would sail it back.
The boat’s crew members are on trial over immigration and maritime offences and could be jailed for up to 15 years.
But the cash could not be presented as evidence in their trial because it was not available.
The crew’s lawyer said the police gave the money back to the crew, even though they were in custody at the time and the crew gave the money to their families.
The absence of the cash has caused major problems for prosecutors and nearly derailed the trial, which began on Tuesday.
Yohanis Humiang was in charge of a boat of 65 asylum seekers in May when it was intercepted by Australian Customs and turned back to Indonesia.
Humiang and his crew were arrested soon after they landed and are now on trial for immigration and maritime offences.
An indictment tendered to the court in Rote said an Australian Customs vessel shadowed the asylum seeker boat for two days before the crew and passengers were transferred to another boat and turned back.
The indictment said that before the turn-back the Australians gave each crew member $US5000 ($7,000) — a total of $US30,000 ($43,000).
As recently as Sunday, Immigration Minister Peter Dutton would neither confirm nor deny that any taxpayers’ cash had gone to people smugglers.
But this controversial payment could not be presented as evidence in this trial. Indonesian police said they gave it back to the detained crew, who in turn had given it to their families.
The crew’s court-appointed lawyer Yesaya Dae Pani told the ABC the men admitted getting the money from Australian Customs.
Case can still be made without cash: prosecutor
“But either the police investigator or the prosecutor did not seize the money as evidence,” the lawyer said.
“So the money has been given to them by the police investigator, and he said to me that they have sent the money to their family in North Sulawesi.
“I did not see myself when the police gave the money back to my clients. It happened at the same time that the police handed over the case file to the prosecutor’s office.”
Prosecutor Alexander Elem Sele said the absence of the Australian cash had caused big problems for the trial.
“That’s why this case has been delayed for some time, and the file has been back and forth, because the money was not included,” Mr Elem Sele said.
“And because the detaining period is almost finished, they would have walked free.
“We think we still have a case that can be proven without the money. We’ve got other evidence which can be used to prove they sent the asylum seekers overseas.”
Lives put at risk: Amnesty
Amnesty International last month alleged that Australian officials who paid people smugglers to return to Indonesia had committed a transnational crime and put lives at risk.
The boat was allegedly pushed back to Rote Island in Indonesia in late July, and Amnesty said it interviewed 15 people from Bangladesh, Pakistan and Myanmar.
But Immigration Minister Peter Dutton slammed Amnesty’s report, saying the suggestion Australian officials treated asylum seekers inhumanely was “a slur on the men and women of the ABF and ADF”.
Former immigration minister Scott Morrison, in June, said he knew whether Australian authorities paid people smugglers but could not talk about it publicly.
Mr Morrison, now Social Services Minister, was asked whether he knew about the practice occurring while he was minister.
“I know what we did and I know what it was about and I know it was lawful,” he told Melbourne radio station 3AW at the time.(Adam Harvey)
Link: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-11-11/cash-goes-missing-ahead-of-indonesian-people-smuggling-trial/6929540
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