Govt sued over minors in adult jails

JAKARTA: Australia is being sued for US$80 million (about 2.8 billion baht) in Jakarta over claims it held juvenile Indonesian people-smuggling suspects in adult prisons or for long periods in immigration detention, a lawyer said yesterday.

The class-action lawsuit was launched on Thursday at a court in the capital on behalf of 115 Indonesians allegedly detained when they were minors, said the lawyer representing them, Lisa Hiariej.

They were either held in immigration detention centres for longer than three months, or in adult jails, both situations that break Australian laws, said Ms Hiariej.

The minors were detained when they arrived in Australia on people-smuggling boats between 2008 and 2012. The vessels were typically crewed by Indonesians and carried migrants from countries including Afghanistan and Iran. “They had violated the law because they came to Australia illegally but because they were minors they should not have been jailed in adult prisons or detained for more than three months,” she said. Those arrested were not tried in court but held in jail or immigration detention and later sent back to Indonesia. The claimants are seeking Aus$103 million (about 2.77 billion baht) in compensation, said the lawyer.

The Australian embassy in Jakarta did not immediately have any comment. Australian authorities incorrectly determined they were 18 or over using wrist X-rays — a method that has been criticised as unreliable, said Ms Hiariej. She said she and other lawyers later determined from the teenagers’ birth certificates that they were minors at the time of their detention.