Ruling leaves boat people all at sea

Ruling leaves boat people all at sea

AUSTRALIA: A boatload of asylum seekers, floating in an Indonesian fishing boat in a secret location off the northern coast of Australia on Saturday, have had an appeal to enter Australia rejected by the Supreme Court.

The boat people -- believed to be 14 Turkish Kurds accompanied by four Indonesian crew -- were towed out to sea on Friday by the Australian Navy after the fishing boat reached tropical Melville Island, 80 km north of Darwin, on Tuesday.

The small Australian island lies outside Australia's official migration zone, which means that reaching its shores does not give them an automatic right to seek safe haven.

The Supreme Court late on Friday rejected a claim by the Northern Territory Legal Aid Commission to bring the 14 asylum seekers back to Australia, but has not disclosed its reasoning or the location or destination of the boat, the Minasa Bone.

-- AP