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Australia expected to charge Indonesian crew from asylum seeker boat
Three Indonesian crewmen from the asylum seeker boat that crashed on Christmas Island last week are likely to be charged by Australian police as authorities in Indonesia search for the people smuggler suspected of organising the doomed voyage.
Dozens of asylum seekers including women and children, died after their boat smashed into cliffs Photo: REUTERS
By Bonnie Malkin, Sydney 12:26PM GMT 19 Dec 2010
Supt Gavan Ryan, the policeman leading the criminal investigation into the crash, in which at least 30 people died, said the director of public prosecutions would decide if the crewmen would face multiple charges of manslaughter and reckless endangerment of life.
"A brief of evidence is being compiled. Based on what's happened in the past I would well and truly anticipate that the crew would be charged in the future," he told the West Australian newspaper.
Australian and Indonesian police are also on the trail of the man suspected of arranging the trip from Java to Christmas Island. The authorities believe Ali Regi, a notorious people smugger who specialises in transporting Iranian and Iraqi Kurds to Australia, organised the voyage.
Regi uses several different names and passes himself off as Iranian, although he may hail from Afghanistan.
He is believed to be a senior member of a smuggling network that arranges accommodation and transport for asylum seekers. If Regi is located, it is likely that the government in Canberra will want to extradite him to face trial in Australia, which has much stricter people smuggler legislation than Indonesia.
New anti-people-smuggling laws, passed earlier this year, created the offence of "people-smuggling involving exploitation or danger of death or serious harm", which carries a maximum sentence of 20-years in jail. Indonesian police are able to charge smugglers only under general immigration law, and convictions rarely lead to a custodial sentence.
There is concern in Australia that if Regi is arrested in Indonesia he may slip through the net, after two suspected people-smugglers were recently released from custody while Canberra was seeking their extradition. Agung Sabar Santoso, Indonesia's national police director of transnational crime, said his division was co-operating with the Australian Federal Police.
Several days ago an Indonesian police spokesman said it was not the responsibility of Indonesia to investigate because "that was a disaster, not a crime". Yesterday (SUN) survivors of the disaster held a vigil for those that died as police divers trawled underwater caves searching for more bodies.
The death toll has remained unchanged since Friday, but police fear it could rise to about 58 when the exact number of passengers on board the vessel is determined. Among the dead were seven children, including four infants. Three children were orphaned in the tragedy.
More than 5,000 refugees, mostly from Iraq, Afghanistan and Sri Lanka, have made their way to Australia this year on rickety boats from Indonesia, prompting a raging political debate over asylum seeker policy.
