Overstayer found in fridge

A Tongan rugby player on the run from the immigration officials was found hiding in a fridge in an Auckland house yesterday.

After a tip-off the officials and police went to a Sandringham house, said Immigration Service spokeswoman Kathryn O'Sullivan.

They found the 20-year-old man, one of 14 Tongan rugby players who did not return home after coming to New Zealand to play last year, after seeing cabbages strewn across the kitchen floor.

"He had a mattress underneath the house so he was trying to avoid detection," Ms O'Sullivan said.

The service was considering whether to prosecute the people who had harboured the man.

Ms O'Sullivan said the man would be deported on Saturday, and urged the remaining players to hand themselves in rather than face a similar fate. Three others had previously been found.

"The point is they can't come back into the country for five years if they have a removal order on them. If they give themselves up and they go voluntarily from the country they can apply for work permits when they are in Tonga."

The team members disappeared after touring New Zealand last September.

The tip-off yesterday came from a Tongan community member, who told the Herald she called officials because she was tired of overstayers making it difficult for genuine Tongan visitors to come to New Zealand. "It's ruining it for other people."

Besides those living in the house, she was not the only one in the Tongan community who knew where he was hiding, she said.

The overstayers from the rugby team had placed stress on the community, she said. "We're having to support them." She did not know where the other team members were, but believed they were in Auckland.

- STAFF REPORTER AND NZPA