Siev X: man to stand trial over alleged role in organising asylum attempt which ended in disaster
More than two decades after an asylum seeker boat bound for Australia sank, drowning more than 350 people, a man has been committed to stand trial in Brisbane over his alleged part in the people-smuggling operation that put them on board.
Iraqi national Maythem Kamil Radhi is accused of being part of a syndicate that put 421 people on an overcrowded and dilapidated fishing vessel, later known as Suspected Illegal Entry Vessel X (Siev X), in October 2001.
The boat, which left from Bandar Lampung in south Sumatra, Indonesia, capsized and sank about 70km south of Java – 353 people, 146 of them children, drowned.
While about 120 people survived the initial sinking, only 44 were ultimately rescued by a fishing boat, after spending more than 20 hours in the sea. A 45th survivor was rescued another 12 hours later by another boat.
Radhi, now aged 45, has not been charged over the deaths, but has been committed in the Brisbane magistrates court to stand trial on one charge of bringing groups of non-citizens into Australia.
The case against Radhi argues he played a “facilitation” role before the illfated voyage left Indonesia, commonwealth prosecutor Daniel Caruana said during the committal hearing.
Witnesses report he was present when money was negotiated, but they “more consistently” remembered him as an organiser, Caruana told the court. The court heard Radhi organised logistics, such as buses taking asylum seekers between accommodation and beaches.
Fawzi Al Majid, who met the Siev X organisers but did not ultimately board the boat after being warned not too, said hundreds of people were taken by bus to a hotel in Sumatra where they spent four days waiting for the boat.
Al Majid said he paid $1,000 to Radhi and another man to take part in the operation.
But after the boat sank some money was paid back to him by a third man.
“They assumed if they give us the money we won’t talk … to the police,” Al Majid, testifying by video link, said through an interpreter.
“Many people died from that accident and they want to shut the people’s mouth with this money.”
The committal hearing was told some of those who had paid to be smuggled refused to board, fearing the boat would never make the journey.
Others got off the boat during the voyage, choosing to disembark on the Krakatau islands between Sumatra and Java, out of concern the boat would sink.
But others urged the captain to continue, threatening and hitting him, even attempting to bribe him to keep going.
Raad Zubari, who was on the boat until its water pump broke and a smaller boat took him and others to shore, told the hearing the captain stopped the dilapidated fishing vessel several times before it ultimately broke down about 13 hours into the journey.
But each time the captain stopped, people tried to “convince him [with] money or sometimes they threatened him and hit him,” Zubari said.
“The captain didn’t want to continue the journey because he knows about the boat and the condition of the sea and the waves.”
Another witness, Quasy Al Majid, said when people offered the captain money, he replied that he did not want it and the boat would not make it to Australia.
Two men were convicted over the Siev X tragedy 15 years ago: Egyptian national Abu Quassey, the organiser of the venture, was jailed in Egypt, and his accomplice Khaled Doaed, arrested in Sweden and extradited, was jailed for five years in Brisbane.
An arrest warrant for Radhi was issued in a Brisbane court, a decade ago, in 2011.
But the process was delayed while his eligibility for extradition was argued in courts in New Zealand, where he had been living with his wife and three children since 2009.
Radhi surrendered two years ago, and agreed to discontinue his appeals against extradition.
He remains in custody and will stand trial in the Brisbane district court on a date yet to be set.
The Siev X was one of the worst asylum seeker boat disasters in Australia’s region in history.
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It was also acutely politically contentious in Australia. The boat sank during the 2001 federal election campaign in Australia, and the issue of asylum seekers arriving by boat became a key electoral issue – tragically reinforced, all within three months, by the Tampa affair, the children overboard scandal, and the Siev X tragedy.
The Siev X sank in international waters, but within Indonesia’s designated zone of search and rescue responsibility. But it also sank within Australia’s border protection surveillance area around the Australian territory of Christmas Island, a common destination for asylum seeker boats.
A parliamentary inquiry into ‘A Certain Maritime Incident’ – the children overboard affair but which also examined Siev X – said: “the committee finds it extraordinary that a major human disaster could occur in the vicinity of a theatre of intensive Australian operations, and remain undetected until three days after the event, without any concern being raised within intelligence and decision making circles”.
The parliamentary committee said it could not find grounds “for believing that negligence or dereliction of duty was committed in relation to Siev X”.
“The committee, nevertheless, finds it disturbing that no review of the Siev X episode was conducted by any agency in the aftermath of the tragedy.
No such review occurred until after the committee’s inquiry had started and public controversy developed over the Australian response to Siev X.”