Tamil refugees deny posing security threat

14 Aug 2012, 12:06 am   -   Source: AAP

Three Tamil refugees facing indefinite detention after ASIO assessed them as a security risk have denied they present any threat.

Three Tamil refugees facing indefinite detention after the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) ruled they are a security risk have denied they pose any threat to Australia.

The three have been held at Sydney's Villawood detention centre for three years and one, named only as Kokil, said they were like the living dead.

"It is life in hell. If I was an inmate awaiting capital punishment, I would know what time and which place I would be hanged. But I am an inmate who hasn't even committed an offence," he told ABC television.

His brother Prem said there was no evidence he was a security risk.

"Without evidence they have locked me up by force. I am innocent," he said.

The third, named as Bonus, said he couldn't sleep and was taking medication.

"Sometimes I get up and scream. Sometimes I break things," he said.

Lawyer Phillip Boulten SC, vice-president of the NSW Bar Association, said the government needed to take steps to redress this wrong.

"People can be locked up on the say so of somebody behind closed doors and the person never told why and with no opportunity to give any effective challenge to it whatsoever," he said.

"Until somebody is able to find out what the information ASIO relies on truly is, you can only draw the conclusion that the information that is leading to these adverse assessments is coming from the Sri Lankan government who have been the military opponents of the people who are seeking asylum."

All three have been accepted as refugees but ASIO has assessed them as posing a security risk, presumably on grounds of links with the defeated Tamil Tigers.

That means they can't be released into the Australian community and their only prospect of release is to be accepted by a third country. Fifty-four asylum seekers are in this position, the majority Tamils.

All three denied they were ever combatants or posed any risk.

"I don't know why ASIO thinks I'm a security risk. I provided evidence that I was studying full-time," said Bonus.

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