Schoolgirl freed after two days in a police cell

By THERESA GARNER and MATHEW DEARNALEY

While her friends toiled over geography and mathematics exams, Tongan schoolgirl Siuati Kulikefu spent two days locked in a police cell, beside herself with worry over her ill mother.

The 18-year-old, who was taken into custody on Monday under an Immigration Service removal warrant, was released from the Papakura police station last night on Government orders.

Sobbing and shaking, she was quickly reunited at a Mangere address with her older sister and mother, a dialysis patient and overstayer who remains in hiding from the authorities.

But she was still in the school uniform she was wearing when she was picked up, and looking forward to moving to another secret location for a meal and her first shower in two days.

Siuati, described by her sixth-form teachers as a model student, said she had been asleep on Monday afternoon after the first of this week's exams when she heard a "screaming" voice.

It was that of a female immigration officer, who had arrived with three police, demanding that she go outside.

"I was scared and went out because I didn't want them to come inside and take my mum, because of her condition, and told them she wasn't here," she told the Herald.

"Two policemen were really nice but still I am scared."

She was given a private cell at the police station but remained terrified about the strain of her arrest on her 50-year-old mother, Sesalina Kulikefu, who has heart and kidney disease and requires home dialysis four times a day.

Her 23-year-old sister Elenoa and 3-year-old adopted brother Lotu are also in New Zealand illegally, and the family is convinced Mrs Kulikefu will die if she is sent back to Tonga.

"There is nothing for us in Tonga, mum is really sick, and if we go back there is nothing, nothing," Siuati said, breaking down again in tears.

The family's lawyer, John Foliaki, feared the strain on Mrs Kulikefu might have triggered a heart attack and she received medical advice at a check-up yesterday to try to put the arrest out of her mind.

Associate Immigration Minister Damien O'Connor said he ordered Siuati's release from custody to allow the family's immigration status to be sorted out, but left a removal order in place against the schoolgirl.

She must report daily to immigration officials and the rest of the family has been given a week to give themselves up, as a condition of Siuati's release.

Siuati also has a meeting with her school principal today to see whether she will be able to continue her studies in the meantime.

She welcomed visits to her police cell by her teachers, and said one of them told her "they can't wait to get this mess over with so I can come back to school".

Mr Foliaki is disappointed that the removal order remains in force but hopes the planned arrival from Australia today of Siuati's father, Sione Latu Kulikefu, will enable the family to be granted residency.

This is because Mr Kulikefu is an Australian resident with an automatic right to residency here as well.

He has been in Australia for work since 1995 but visited his family last week, returning to Perth only to sort out his affairs before a permanent move to this country.

Mr Foliaki was disturbed to find Siuati "in pretty bad shape" when he visited her at the police station yesterday, and wondered why she was given no change of clothes or a shower.

"Why hasn't she been given any clothes or a shower? Why hasn't she been allowed to wash herself?" he said before receiving word of the release.

Sergeant Michael Bailey at Papakura said he understood Mr Foliaki intended to bring a change of clothes.

"We don't go out and buy them clothes. It's their responsibility to bring a change of clothes." He said the police station had shower facilities.

When told that Siuati had apparently not been offered use of them, he said, "Probably not much point putting her back in dirty clothes, is it?

"When she gets clean clothes we'll probably be able to give her a shower."

Mr Foliaki said Siuati had been visited by her school's deputy principal.

"I have been told by the school this girl is a model student.

"Her only problem is that she misses school when her mother is not too well. She is one of their better students."

Siuati works 30 hours a week at McDonald's. "All the money comes in to help their keep."