Refugee's case likely to reach Supreme Court

An Afghan refugee who failed in his appeal to have a police search of his home declared unlawful is likely to take his case to the country's highest court.

The man, who cannot be named, went to the Court of Appeal, claiming police had no right to search his home in 2000 or to give documents they seized to the Immigration Service, which was now reviewing his refugee status.

The man had no removal or deportation order issued against him, said his lawyer, Rodney Hooker.

He has 20 days to take his case to the Supreme Court, after the appeal judgment was released yesterday.

Mr Hooker said the "odds are" that the case would go to the Supreme Court to challenge the Court of Appeal ruling.

"It would certainly get serious consideration," he said.

The man arrived in New Zealand in 1995 and was granted refugee status after he claimed he would be killed by the Mujahideen, the Afghan resistance army.

He also said his wife and children had been killed.

An inquiry involving the Immigration Service, Security Intelligence Service and foreign agencies, including Australian police, led to a search of his home in 2000.

Police seized several documents, including a map of the nuclear reactor at Lucas Heights, Sydney. The reactor was a planned target of terrorists but several were arrested and the attack was thwarted.

The man was charged with fraud over his refugee application.

But the Court of Appeal said in yesterday's judgment that the Crown elected to offer no evidence because of "difficulties of proof and concern at public disquiet about the case" following the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Centre in New York on September 11, 2001. The fraud case was dropped.

Mr Hooker said his client was a family man who had made New Zealand his adopted home and did not want to leave.

"We are only in the very first part of the sequence of events," Mr Hooker said.

The Court of Appeal said the police had used the material "for the proper purpose of discharging their function of upholding the law".

- NZPA