Asylum-seeker testifies against police

Asylum-seeker testifies against police

AUSTRALIA: Indonesian police helped people smugglers who led more than 400 mostly Afghan asylum-seekers on an ill-fated trip to Australia last year, a court here heard on Wednesday.

One of the asylum-seekers, Mohammed Hashim Hussaini, 36, told the court that police and other security forces in Jakarta appeared to be accomplices with the dozens of people smugglers involved in the incident.

Hussaini was testifying in the trial of four Indonesians accused of attempting to smuggle 434 asylum-seekers into Australia between Aug. 23 and 26 last year in the so-called Tampa affair.

The packed fishing boat used to smuggle the asylum-seekers broke down at sea and the passengers and four Indonesian crewmen were picked up by a Norwegian freighter, the Tampa. --AFP