Police chief up before senate over refugee’s detention
AUSTRALIAN Federal Police did not know a Bahraini footballer was a refugee who feared persecution in his homeland when they alerted Bahrain and Thailand that he was on a flight bound for Bangkok, a top police official has said.
Police deputy commissioner Ramzi Jabbour told a senate committee the two countries were alerted on November 27, almost six hours before Hakeem al-araibi landed after a ninehour flight from Melbourne on his honeymoon.
He was detained at the airport and held for 76 days under threat of extradition to Bahrain before he was released last week and returned to Melbourne.
The bungle drew the Australian government, international football bodies and human rights advocates into a dispute with the Thai and Bahrain governments to gain Mr al-araibi’s freedom.
The rules of international policing organisation Interpol prevent a Red Notice from being issued for a refugee to be sent back to the country from which they fled persecution.
Australian officials face days of questioning by a senate committee to determine how the bungle arose.
Australian Federal Police commissioner Andrew Colvin told the committee that police did not know Mr al-araibi was a refugee and did not have access to his visa status when Bahrain applied for a Red Notice to Australia’s Interpol bureau on November 9.
The Australian Border Force did not advise Australian police that Mr al-araibi was a refugee until a day after he was detained in Thailand, Mr Colvin said.
“Until such time as we were advised that he was subject to a protection visa, we had no reason to think that this was anything other than a very standard transactional matter,” Mr Colvin told the committee.
Interpol subsequently withdrew the Red Notice, but Bahrain did not drop its bid to extradite Mr al-araibi until last week. Mr Colvin blamed Mr al-araibi’s ordeal on a “failure of the system”.
The home affairs department, which includes both police and the border force, had undertaken several internal reviews “with the view to improving information exchange and reducing the risk of similar cases in the future”, Mr Colvin said.