Politicians entitled to seek refuge, says UN body

The United Nations body that vets refugee applications says some of Saddam Hussein's former officials would have a legitimate case to be allowed to settle in New Zealand.

The UN High Commission for Refugees said that while it had a strict policy of not commenting on individual cases, "many Iraqis" who would once have been part of Saddam's regime would have bona fide refugee claims.

They may have stood up to, or in some other way fallen foul of, the former dictator's regime, said Ariane Rummery, speaking from the commission's Canberra office.

"Just because you are part of a Government doesn't mean you would automatically [be excluded] under the refugee convention," she said.

Exclusion clauses under the 1951 Refugee Convention were aimed at screening out those who had committed crimes against humanity or other serious non-political crimes.

"The convention is not supposed to be a safe haven for criminals, which is why it does provide these exclusion clauses," she said.

All cases were assessed by commission officials on an individual basis.

"It's quite a strict test to meet the criteria and it's done on an individual basis, so everyone has to prove individually they are facing persecution [in their home country]."

The commission had various checking procedures aimed at verifying whether someone had a legitimate case for refugee status, including checks carried out in the asylum-seeker's home country.

It had to be satisfied that someone applying for refugee status was facing persecution on at least one of five grounds: race, religion, nationality, membership of a social group or political opinion.

Refugees did not get to choose which country they were settled in, Ms Rummery said.

New Zealand's Refugee Status Appeals Authority is the body charged with hearing appeals on cases where asylum-seekers have been denied refugee status.

In November last year, the authority granted refugee status to a "Chaldean Christian" man from Baghdad who faced, it said, "anti-Christian violence" in Iraq which had reached a "new and serious level" since August last year.

But it dismissed an appeal for refugee status by another Iraqi man who sought asylum in New Zealand because, he said, he faced persecution from various groups after the fall of Saddam.