Man deported from Australia, flown back three days later

MELBOURNE - Australia's immigration department defied a United Nations request not to deport an asylum seeker, spending thousands of dollars to deport him, only to fly him back to Australia three days later when new UN information was received.

The asylum-seeker, known only as Hassan, was deported despite a request by the United Nations Human Rights Committee not to deport him until it had finished an investigation into his case, ABC Radio said today.

It said the immigration department deported Hassan to Dubai last week, intending to deport him from there to his home country.

His full name and his home country have not been revealed, to protect his safety.

Hassan had been in Australian detention centres for five years, his case for asylum having been rejected by the immigration department and several courts.

When the United Nations Human Rights Commissioner for Refugees, Antonio Guterres, learned Hassan was being held at Dubai, he sent the immigration department information relating to Hassan's case, which prompted the federal government to fly the man back to Australia.

Hassan's barrister, Alexandra Richards QC, said she believed her client would have been in danger if he had been sent to his home country.

"It was certainly the view of the legal team and obviously the UN Human Rights Committee (that) Hassan was likely to suffer irreparable harm immediately he was handed over to the authorities in his home country," she told the ABC's AM program.

Upon receiving a tip-off last Wednesday that Hassan had been asked to pack his bags, his lawyers had sought an injunction against his deportation.

By the time it was granted, the immigration department had flown him from the Baxter detention centre to Sydney and then on to Dubai.

Because of the injunction, the immigration department decided to hold him at a Dubai airport hotel, the ABC said.

Three days later he was suddenly flown back to Australia, after the immigration department received the new information from the UN High Commissioner for Refugees.

Ms Richardson said the situation could have been avoided if the immigration department had agreed to the UN committee request not to deport Hassan, or had given the committee several days notice of the deportation, rather than only a few hours.

Victorian Greens party spokesman Peter Job said the Australian government would have to wear the blame for wasting tens of thousands of taxpayer dollars.

The ABC said an immigration department spokesman had defended the decision to notify the UN committee only hours before the deportation, saying "the views of the UN bodies are non-binding."

It said the spokesman had told it the new information received from the UN about Hassan's case would now be assessed in relation to his application for refugee status.

- AAP