Immigration status of rapist not yet decided

A report into the immigration status of an Iraqi refugee convicted of raping three women in New Zealand will not be released until his legal appeal is complete.
Akeel Hassan Abbas Al Baiiaty, 35, was found guilty of raping, abducting and assaulting a 20-year-old woman at a Porirua hostel where he was staying in January last year, less than two months after his release from a nine-year jail term for raping two Auckland prostitutes and assaulting a third with intent to rape her.

Yesterday the Court of Appeal reserved its decision on Al Baiiaty's appeal against his latest convictions and the sentence that he serve at least seven years of an open-ended jail term of preventive detention.

He came to New Zealand in 1994, after being in the Iraqi army during the Gulf War, as a quota refugee. The citizenship he was granted in 1997 was revoked last year and it is expected he will be deported when his sentence ends.

Immigration Minister Paul Swain in February ordered a report on Al Baiiaty and how the United Nations convention on refugees could be used to get rid of him but it has not yet been released publicly.

Deputy Secretary for the Department of Labour Mary Anne Thompson said the department was not in a position to comment until the court's final decision was released.

"Once the judicial process is completed, and Mr Al Baiiaty has served his time if the court hands him a sentence, then the department will assess his immigration status," she told NZPA.

- NZPA