Khaleed Daoed’s trial still scheduled to start in Brisbane Supreme Court on Monday 16 May – an update

 

Since the ABC News report on 27 April and my media release that same day, the only media coverage of this important forthcoming people smuggling trial has been (editor) Sarah Stephen’s piece below in Green Left Weekly on 11 May, "Fundraising Appeal for SIEV X trial".

Chilout (Children out of Detention) has also circularised its large email mailing list

(3000 strong) with an appeal to its readers to support financially Sue Hoffman’s brave and praiseworthy initiative to accompany two SIEV X bereaved family members from Perth to Brisbane to witness and monitor the full trial.

I believe this could be an historically significant trial. It is the first time that important parts of the SIEV X history might be legally scrutinised in a normal Australian courtroom. For the first time, the challenge will be to our own Australian legal system – not the Indonesian, and not the Egyptian – to see whether justice is done and seen to be done, in the case of the alleged people smuggler and Abu Quassey’s right-hand-man, Khaleed Daoed.

Please , if you are in the Brisbane area with time for public-interest activities, try to witness this trial.

And please, if you can, support Sue Hoffman’s initiative financially.

Marg Hutton’s website www.sievx.com is monitoring media coverage of the trial and has a full archive of public media-sourced material (from Sweden as well as from Australia) relating to Khaleed Daoed.

TK, Canberra 11 May 2005

 

Fundraising appeal for SIEV X trial – Green Left Weekly, 11 May 2005

http://www.greenleft.org.au/back/2005/626/626p2b.htm

The trial of alleged SIEV X people smuggler Khaleed Daoed is scheduled to commence in the Brisbane Supreme Court on May 17 and will run for at least three weeks. The boat dubbed the SIEV X sank in international waters off Indonesia on October 19, 2001, drowning 353 asylum seekers. Only 44 survived.

The people smuggler who organised the SIEV X voyage, Abu Quassey, is currently serving a 5.25 year sentence in Egypt.

Daoed's alleged role as Quassey's bookkeeper and fares negotiator was reported by several survivors of the tragedy. In the absence of a full-powers judicial inquiry, this is the last chance to get new information onto the public record concerning SIEV X.

Supporters of SIEV X survivors in Western Australia have started a fundraising campaign to ensure that a number of men living in Perth who lost their wives and children in the SIEV X tragedy can get to the trial. "It may offer some sense of justice being done, although this trial falls far short of the inquiry many would like to see in relation to SIEV X", Sue Hoffman from the WA Refugee Alliance told Green Left Weekly. During the trial they may also learn more about the last days and hours of their loved ones.

Donations can made to Family of SIEV X, Commonwealth Bank, Morley WA branch, BSB 066132, Account Number 10435629. Send an email to <wara@optusnet.com.au>. Contact Sue Hoffman on 0401 238 567.

Sarah Stephen, Green Left Weekly, May 11, 2005.

 

"SIEV X Accused Khaleed Daoed to Stand Trial" - Media Release. Tony Kevin, 27 April 2005

See ABC News release below, "SIEV X Accused To Stand Trial", 27 April (with thanks to ABC News)) .

There are many references to the role of Khaleed Daoed, who is about to come to trial in Brisbane for people smuggling after two years of pre-trial detention in Sweden and Australia, in my factual history of the SIEV X tragedy and the unfinished Senate investigation in Australia, A Certain Maritime Incident: the Sinking of SIEV X (Scribe Books, Melbourne, August 2004).

Khaleed Daoed's alleged role as Abu Quassey's bookkeeper and fares negotiator was reported by several survivors of the tragedy, to various members of the media, during 2001 and 2002. There is an interesting public history of his arrest in Indonesia in 2001, his subsequent release and removal to Sweden as a refugee in 2002 as a result of intercession by the UNHCR, and his later extradition from Sweden to Australia in 2003 as an accused people smuggler at Australian Government request. The Swedish Government now takes no further responsibility for Mr Daoed. As far as I know, he is effectively a stateless person.

Meanwhile, the reported main organiser of the SIEV X voyage Abu Quassey, an Egyptian citizen, is serving a 5 1/4 year sentence in Egypt ( 5 years for accidental manslaughter; 3 months for people smuggling - commuted after appeal from 2 years for people smuggling).

While remaining within the limits of the law in respect of a case that is sub judice, I will be happy to brief interested members of the media on relevant factual background to the upcoming Daoed case, insofar as it is publicly known, regarding the voyage of SIEV X, the Australian Government's people smuggling disruption program in Indonesia in 2000-2001, the Abu Quassey extradition and prosecution history, and the unfinished Senate enquiry into these matters, that are referred to in my book.

Tony Kevin

Contact numbers: 0414 822 171 or 02 62956588

Canberra, 27 April 2005

 

"SIEV-X accused to stand trial", ABC News Online reporter Stefan Armbruster

- ABC news online, Wednesday, April 27, 2005. 8:05am (AEST)

The only person to be charged in Australia with people smuggling in relation to the SIEV-X, which sank in 2001 with the loss of 353 lives, will go on trial in the Brisbane Supreme Court on May 17.

The Commonwealth Department of Public Prosecution (DPP) says Khaleed Shanayf Daoed faces two charges of helping organise the illegal entry of people from Indonesia into Australia.

People smuggling carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in jail.

In April last year, the Iraqi-national's lawyer told the Brisbane Magistrates Court that his client was innocent of the charges.

The sinking of the SIEV-X (suspected illegal entry vessel) on October 19, 2001, was a source of political controversy over allegations that federal authorities knew about its fate but did nothing to rescue those aboard.

The Senate's Children Overboard inquiry report in October 2002 rejected those claims but found it extraordinary the sinking went undetected for three days while an intensive Australian maritime surveillance operation was underway.

The SIEV-X sank between Java and north-western Australia with the loss of all but 45 of those aboard.

The wooden fishing boat left Bandar Lampung in southern Sumatra on October 18, 2001 heading for Christmas Island, about 17,000 kilometres west of Darwin.

Daoed's second charge relates to a boat called Yambuk that landed on Christmas Island on August 4, 2001, with 147 people aboard.

He was extradited from Sweden in November 2003.

His lawyer says he is being held at the Arthur Gorrie prison in Brisbane. ENDS