Australia may have granted asylum to suspected JI members

Australia may have granted asylum to suspected JI members

Agencies, Canberra

Australia on Wednesday ordered an investigation into whether immigration officials may have granted asylum to Indonesian members of an organization linked to the alleged terrorist group Jamaah Islamiyah (JI).

Immigration Minister Philip Ruddock said he had asked his department to see if members of an organization called Negara Islam Indonesia (NII) gained refugee visas for Australia during the 1990s.

Ruddock indicated on Wednesday that anyone who used their association with Jamaah Islamiyah as a reason to be granted a protection visa in Australia could have the visa revoked.

Australian Federal Police said on Wednesday that they were examining video tapes from Refugee Review Tribunal hearings at which refugee applicants reportedly admitted to being members of JI or other radical Indonesian Islamic groups.

In at least one instance the records quote an applicant saying the NII sought the overthrow of the secular Indonesian state and its replacement with an Islamic state under sharia law.

"The applicant stated... that (NII) wanted to establish Islamic law as prevailing in the whole country and eventually the whole world," the tribunal's decision said.

NII is a fundamentalist Muslim group that seeks to replace the Indonesian government with an Islamic state. Some members of both groups were allegedly persecuted by the Jakarta government during the reign of former dictator Soeharto.

Ruddock said that Australia's Refugee Review Tribunal, which hears appeals from asylum seekers whose claims have been rejected by the Immigration Department, had records of some people making appeals on the basis of such persecution.

"I have certainly asked the department to check whether there were any cases where claims of linkages with JI were accepted as a basis for a refugee claim and a grant of protection," he said, adding that it was nonetheless his understanding that none of the claims were successful.

The minister said the asylum claims had been made "before anybody was alert to or aware that JI may present difficulties."

JI is the main suspect in the Oct. 12 bombings that killed more than 190 people -- including almost 90 Australians -- in a nightclub district of the Indonesian holiday island of Bali.

A former member of the refugee tribunal in the 1990s, Bruce Haigh, said members of Islamic fundamentalist groups gained residence in Australia because of religious persecution by the Indonesian government.

"That process I think is continuing, not only amongst people who have come in recently, but people who have been here for a while," Haigh told Australian Broadcasting Corp. radio.

Australian Federal Police were looking into reports several people in the western Australian city of Perth had admitted to membership of Jamaah Islamiyah while seeking an Australian visa, a spokeswoman said.