Fed: Hussein's guard sneaks into Australia

AAP General News (Australia)
12-17-2001
Fed: Hussein's guard sneaks into Australia

By Sharon Mathieson and Nalita Ferraz

CANBERRA, Dec 17 AAP - A former personal guard of Iraqi president Saddam Hussein was
being held in an Australian detention centre after arriving illegally by boat, the government
said today.

The guard had destroyed papers detailing his past life but an investigation by immigration
authorities had revealed his identity, NSW Liberal MP Ross Cameron said.

Mr Cameron said the government had also received information that a man involved in
the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Centre in New York and the Pentagon in Washington
had entered the United States as a refugee.

"We have one person in detention at the moment who arrived by boat who was found to
have ... destroyed his papers," Mr Cameron said on Channel Seven.

"But after thorough search and investigations he was found to be on the personal guard
of Saddam Hussein in Iraq.

"I (also) understand that one of those who has been implicated in the September attacks
in the US was a US asylum seeker.

"We can't be in a situation where we're somehow branding everyone who arrives by boat
as a terrorist.

"But it is nonetheless the case that there is a very high duty of care on our arrivals
and migration staff to go through the due diligence to ensure that those character and
criminal issues have been fully investigated."

Immigration Minister Philip Ruddock has linked the government's hard-line stance on
illegal asylum seekers with the war on terror, warning Australia needed to ensure terrorists
did not try and arrive as boat people.

Australia last week offloaded another 400 asylum seekers to Nauru in return for $10
million to fund health, education and environment programs - a move the Australian Council
for Overseas Aid today labelled a bribe.

The council's human rights policy officer Sue Harris also questioned where the reported
$500 million needed to fund the processing of asylum seekers was coming from, fearing
it was from Australia's official development agency AusAID.

"The aid budget is supposed to be used for poverty reduction ... and they've never
previously identified Nauru as a priority for poverty reduction," Ms Harris said.

"It's basically a bribe, we're using the aid budget to bribe Nauru to accept asylum seekers."

Foreign Minister Alexander Downer's office confirmed some of the $10 million earmarked
for humanitarian programs in Nauru would come from AusAID's budget.

But it would not reveal the source of funding for overseas processing centres.

The Catholic Commission for Justice, Development and Peace said it had received confirmation
some of the cost for processing asylum seekers was from AusAID's budget.

"If the aid budget is being used for Pacific prisons it is a misuse of public monies
which should be spent on assisting the poor, not punishing them," the commission's executive
officer in Melbourne, Marc Purcell, said.

AAP sm/daw/mg/de

KEYWORD: BOAT NIGHTLEAD

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