Deal struck with skipper of asylum seeker boat
THE federal government has reached a legal settlement with the captain of a Vietnamese fishing boat after it destroyed the vessel he used to bring 53 asylum seekers to Australia in 2003.
The confidential settlement ends a long-running court case that has cost the government millions.
It comes after three Federal Court judges last year ruled that if the government could not establish a lawful basis for destroying the ship, its captain was entitled to compensation.
Advertisement: Story continues below
In 2003, the government reopened the Christmas Island detention centre to house the 53 asylum seekers and spent $50 million keeping them there for two years before all received temporary protection visas.
The boat, Hao Kiet, was the first to reach deep into Australian waters since the Howard government's crackdown on illegal immigrants in 2001. The asylum seekers, members of an anti-communist group, had sailed within hundreds of metres of Port Hedland.
The Hao Kiet's captain, Van Tol Tran, was acquitted of people smuggling charges at a retrial in 2005 after he established he had not captained the boat for profit but ''in response to circumstances of sudden or extraordinary emergency''. His wife and two teenage children had sailed to Australia with him.
Mr Tran reached a confidential settlement with the government this month after a successful mediation, according to Federal Court documents. He and his lawyers declined to comment.
Last year, Justices Bruce Lander, Steven Rares and Anthony Besanko allowed Mr Tran's appeal against a Commonwealth decision to destroy his boat. They said that unless the Commonwealth could establish a lawful basis for its failure to return Mr Tran's ship in the same good order and condition it was in when customs officers seized it in July 2003 he was entitled to compensation.
Three days after the ship entered Australia, Customs ordered its destruction, citing the Customs Act, which allows destruction if the boat's maintenance - estimated at $17,000 per day - exceeds its value. Four days later, a customs inspection found the ship was of sound construction.
The judges sent the case back to the primary judge, Dennis Cowdroy, to determine whether the Commonwealth was legally entitled to destroy the boat, and, if not, whether to award damages to Mr Tran.
They ordered the Commonwealth to pay Mr Tran's appeal costs after it spent millions unsuccessfully prosecuting him and co-accused Hoa Van Nguyen, against whom charges were eventually dropped.
Mr Nguyen, an Australian citizen who came here as a refugee from Vietnam in 1994, insisted that his only aim had been to bring at-risk members of his extended family to Australia.
In 2006, Australia's Vietnamese community claimed official documents revealed that the government was worried the arrival of the Hao Kiet asylum seekers ''would impact on relations with Vietnam''.Read More ...
0 comments:
Post a Comment