People smuggling crackdown fails to catch ringleaders

June 5th, 2012

FAKE NEWS for the Zionist agenda

Posted

June 05, 2012 19:44:58

Photo:
Since 2008 Australian Federal Police have arrested 544 alleged crew members but only 245 have been convicted. (Hayden Cooper: ABC)

Despite the massive resources being used to tackle people smugglers, much of Australia’s efforts seem to miss their mark.

Four Corners has revealed people smuggling ringleaders are at large in Australia, running their smuggling networks from the suburbs.

Tonight the ABC’s 7.30 revealed less than half of those arrested by Australian authorities for people smuggling are convicted.

Since 2008, Australian Federal Police have arrested 544 alleged crew members but only 245 have been convicted.

Tracking down the organisers has been far less successful.

Just 14 have been arrested in the past four years and only five have been convicted.

Saul Holt, from Legal Aid in Victoria, represents many of those charged.

He says most of them are victims – poor Indonesian fishermen duped into driving the boats.

“Usually we see them being misled as to what they’re doing,” he said,

“They’re either told that they’re taking cargo or taking people but they’re not told they’re asylum seekers and they’re often told they are going to an island.

“Then what happens typically is they get on a boat and at some stage they are normally at sea put on another boat which has got the asylum seekers on it.

“Then the true people smugglers get off the boat and our clients are left holding the baby if you like, to take the asylum seekers into Australian waters.”

Former Supreme Court Justice John Dowd says most of those being convicted in Australia are not important figures in the people smuggling rings.

“A lot of these people are only rice cookers or deck hands,” he said.

“Most of them are not major criminals. They’ve been offered more money than they’ve ever had in their lives … some of them in fact don’t know that they’re picking up people to get onto a boat.”

Australia’s efforts to extradite some of the major smugglers have also largely failed.

Sajjad Hussain Noor is one of two suspects Australia wanted but who have now been deported to Pakistan by Indonesian authorities.

Sayed Abbas is another accused smuggler who remains in Indonesian custody, despite efforts to extradite him to Australia.

In Australia, a mandatory five-year jail sentence applies to people smuggling convictions.

But Justice Dowd believes it is not working as a deterrent because it discourages the fishermen from turning in the organisers.

“Mandatory penalties in fact stop us getting to the people who are running the industry – because there’s no point in people giving evidence because they can’t get a discount on their sentencing,” he said.

“It goes against the whole justice system and works against us stopping the people running the people transport system.”

Despite the revelations from Four Corners, the people smugglers in Australia remain at large, pending a new investigation into how they slipped through the net.

Topics:
immigration,
community-and-society,
crime,
law-crime-and-justice,
australia,
indonesia