The Courier-Mail

War vet set free from de­ten­tion

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AN ILL Viet­nam war vet­eran held in an immigratio­n de­ten­tion cen­tre for months was due to be re­leased af­ter his de­por­ta­tion was over­turned.

Bri­tish citizen Michael McFad­den, 69, was to be re­leased yesterday af­ter­noon af­ter Immigratio­n Min­is­ter Peter Dut­ton over­turned a de­por­ta­tion or­der. The de­ci­sion came hours af­ter ad­vo­cates took Mr McFad­den’s story to the media, fol­low­ing two months with no re­ply.

Mr McFad­den was to be re­united with his three chil­dren and six grand­chil­dren yesterday. He was ex­pected to spend last night with them be­fore en­ter­ing a psy­chi­atric hos­pi­tal in Syd­ney.

Mr McFad­den moved to Aus­tralia when he was 10 and fought for the coun­try in Viet­nam. He has brain dam­age as a re­sult of his war ser­vice, hav­ing suf­fered post-trau­matic stress dis­or­der and al­co­holism.

He was de­tained in Villa­wood cen­tre from April when his visa was can­celled. He had spent more than a year in jail for al­co­hol-re­lated of­fences.

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