PORT MORESBY (RNZI / The Age /Sydney Morning Herald / Pacific Media Watch): There are growing doubts over whether two Australian Group 4 Security (G4S) guards will be extradited to Papua New Guinea to be questioned over their alleged role in killing asylum seeker Reza Barati.
Barati, an Iranian architect, was killed in February in the deportation centre during the March 17 attack on the centre which saw 77 other asylum seekers injured.
There have been contradicting accounts of who attacked the centre.
A Group 4 Security (G4S) security guard said earlier this month that local Papua New Guineans and the PNG police were responsible for the attack on the asylum seekers, and not G4S guards. After the attack, several G4S guards hurriedly left the island. But now, the PNG police have named two Australian G4S guards as the suspects and asked for them to return to Manus Island for police questioning.
Australia's immigration Minister Scott Morrison would not say in an interview with the Sydney Morning Herald yesterday whether Australia would permit the extradition, saying he was travelling to PNG this week to find out more about the investigation into the attack on the centre.
It was only last week that the international media got a chance to speak to asylum seekers on Manus Island about the attack for the first time. They were told by other asylum seekers that Barati was "thrown off a balcony" by unknown men. After he fell, the men continued to hit Barati in the head until he died, the asylum seekers reportedly said.
Morrison has also voiced support for the PNG government's efforts to prevent a judicial inquiry into human rights abuses in the deportation centre. Pacific Media Watch has reported that the PNG government succeeded in getting the Supreme Court to halt the inquiry.
However, Justice David Cannings, who is heading the investigation, immediately instituted a new inquiry and gave legal permission for barrister Jay Williams to inspect the centre. But last Thursday, Williams left the centre without being able to complete his investigation after the PNG immigration co-ordinator told him he had been banned from Manus Island.
One of the legal applications Williams is making is for all asylum seekers who were forcibly removed from Christmas Island (while en route to Australia) and dumped on Manus Island, should be taken to Australia for their asylum claims to be processed.
But Michael Gordon, political editor of The Age, reports that the Australian and PNG governments are passing the buck on the future of the asylum seekers with both referring queries back to each other.
"The asylum seekers' claims for refugee status have not been assessed, but have been pre-empted by the country's Prime Minister, whose insistence that the vast majority do not have valid claims and should go home has been given credibility by Tony Abbott" Gordon wrote.
Meanwhile, former expat guards on Manus Island have decided to launch a class action against G4S, alleging that G4S promised them bonuses to work for a year on the island when it already knew that it had lost the contract to Transfield Services.
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