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Australia: Turkish Kurd 'people
trafficker' jailed for five years
27.1.2006
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Sydney, (Jan 27),
- A former Sydney kebab shop worker who helped bring
30 Turkish asylum seekers to Australia has been
jailed for more than five years.
But Mehmet Seriban, 39, an Australian citizen who
organised the transport, accommodation, food, even
prostitutes for the boat people in Indonesia, will
be eligible for parole by the end of this year.
The 30 asylum seekers - a number of who were later
declared refugees - endured dangerous journeys from
Indonesia to Australia in leaky wooden boats, with
no life jackets, little food and water, and no
toilet facilities, the Northern Territory Supreme
Court was told.
Justice David Angel said Seriban - a Turkish Kurd
who made the hazardous trip by boat to seek asylum
in Australia in 1995 - misled some of the passengers
about the dangers and the length of the journey.
One leaky boat, the Warrego, which landed at Ashmore
Reef in February 1999 "had to be pumped every five
to 10 minutes to stop it from sinking", he said.
"There were no life jackets, maps, lights or toilet
facilities on board," Justice Angel said.
"Drinking water ran out in the course of the journey
and many passengers were ill either from eating
rotten food aboard, from hunger, or from fumes from
the engine."
Seriban this month pleaded guilty to nine charges of
helping bring three boats of non-citizens to
Australia from Indonesia in 1998, 1999 and 2000.
He also admitted involvement with two further boats,
helping a total of 30 of the 180 people on the boats
make their way to Australia.
Justice Angel gave Seriban credit for helping
authorities and naming other Australian citizens
involved in the people-trafficking trade.
He found Seriban had been mainly motivated by money,
although four of his clients were relatives.
Justice Angel also accepted that Seriban's actions
did not displace any other refugees waiting to come
to Australia.
Outside court, defence lawyer Jon Tippett QC
declared the ruling a win against the federal
government's "propaganda" in relation to queue
jumping.
"The most important thing that this sentence
demonstrates is that there never was any evidence
that the government had to support its propaganda in
relation to people queue jumping - that people who
came in by boats into Australia were in fact taking
the place of more deserving refugees," Mr Tippett
said outside court.
"It's not true; it was always propaganda.
"It's the equivalent of the children overboard lie
that the government has told the Australian people
time and time again, and unfortunately we as a
community have been prepared to accept those lies as
truth."
Seriban was jailed for five years and six months,
with a non-parole period of two years and nine
months, backdated to his arrest in March 2004.
AAP
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