SA: Woomera boys legal case a delaying tactic - Ruddock

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SA: Woomera boys legal case a delaying tactic - Ruddock

ADELAIDE, Aug 19 AAP - Two boys in the Woomera detention centre were using the legalsystem to delay their removal from Australia, Immigration Minister Philip Ruddock saidtoday.

The brothers, Alamdar Baktiari, 13, and Montazar, 12, gained international publicitywhen they sought asylum from the British Consulate in Melbourne after escaping detentionin July.

Last week, they applied to the Family Court to be released, and Justice Rodney Burrsaid their case required urgent attention as psychological reports into their conditionwere disturbing and alarming.

But Mr Ruddock said the boys had been found not be refugees and were simply using thecourts as a delaying tactic.

"Essentially the issue here is that we have a family who have been determined, throughall of the processes available to them, not to be refugees and are being held for removal,"

Mr Ruddock told ABC radio.

"That's essentially what we face.

"They, at the moment, are delaying that by initiating a range of legal matters to keepthem here lawfully, but essentially it's a situation of people who have no protectionentitlements in Australia seeking to use the legal system to remain here."

Mr Ruddock repeated the argument his lawyers put before the court, that it had no powerto determine the boys' fate.

"The judge has competency in relation to Family Court matters, but he doesn't makedecisions in relation to who will be detained under migration law," he said.

Mr Ruddock also criticised the Woomera Lawyers Group for recently allowing journalistBob Ellis to accompany them into the detention centre, posing as a paralegal, before writinga newspaper article about conditions at Woomera.

He said he did not believe claims by the lawyers that they were unaware of Mr Ellis'sreal intentions.

"It's a matter of using subterfuge to try to gain publicity," Mr Ruddock said.

"They seem to see it as a game; I think it's far more serious than that.

"He went there with another purpose and they were privy to it. To feign surprise isonly to cover, I think, their own involvement in this issue."

AAP scl/tjd/was/sb

KEYWORD: WOOMERA RUDDOCK