Malaysian fugitive Sirul Azhar Umar’s status is unclear once more after Australia passed new laws allowing former immigration detainees to be locked up again if they pose a risk of committing serious offences.
Under the new laws passed by Parliament yesterday, a court can order the detention of the most serious offenders where they pose the risk of committing serious violent or sexual offences.
Australia's Home Minister Clare O'Neill said the legislation establishes a robust preventative detention and community safety order regime that is modelled on the existing high-risk terrorist offender scheme.
The new laws will allow Immigration Minister Andrew Giles to apply to a court to re-detain people who have been released from immigration detention provided that the individual meets two conditions.
They include the person has been convicted of a crime, either in Australia or overseas, that carries a sentence of at least seven years imprisonment and “an unacceptable risk of committing a serious violent or sexual offence”, and that there is “no less restrictive measure available” to keep the community safe.
Sirul (above), a former bodyguard to ex-prime minister Najib Abdul Razak, was freed from Sydney's Villawood Detention Centre last month after the High Court ruled on Nov 8 that indefinite immigration was unlawful.
He is reported to be staying with his son in Canberra.
Preventive detention
According to Reuters, since the court's ruling on Nov 8, four people who were freed have been charged with fresh offences.
The Labor government then rushed through the new laws on preventive detention following concerns about releasing violent offenders into the community as the opposition and government lawmakers clashed over the ramifications of the court ruling.
Sirul was sentenced to death along with fellow former police personnel Azilah Hadri for the 2006 murder of Mongolian national Altantuya Shaariibuu.
He fled to Australia in 2013 after he and Azilah were freed by the Court of Appeal.
The Federal Court eventually reinstated the conviction and death sentence against the duo in 2015.
Sirul has yet to make use of the Revision of Sentence of Death and Imprisonment for Natural Life (Temporal Jurisdiction of the Federal Court) Act 2023 to seek a review of his death sentence.
Under the law, those on death row or facing life imprisonment have 90 days from Sept 12 to apply for a review.
Australia will not allow Sirul's extradition because he has to serve a death sentence, which is not allowed under its laws. - Mkini
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