Afghan people smuggler jailed
2013-02-20 22:25
Jakarta - An Afghan man who helped organise an
Australia-bound boat trip on which 90 asylum seekers drowned, was sentenced on Wednesday
to six year in Indonesia for people-smuggling.
Prosecutors had earlier this month sought a seven-year
term for 20-year-old Dawood Amiri, alias Irfan, who was described by the judge
as a middle man in the smuggling operation.
"Dawood Amiri was found legally and convincingly
guilty of committing people smuggling crimes," Chief Judge Mariana, who goes
by one name, told the court.
"The defendant's actions caused death," Mariana
said, adding that Amiri had been a "middle man" in a larger
syndicate, "not an intellectual actor".
Rescuers managed to save 110 of around 200 asylum
seekers, from Iran, Pakistan and Afghanistan, who were onboard when the boat
sank on 21 June in the Indian Ocean off the remote Australian territory of
Christmas Island - closer to Indonesian Java than mainland Australia.
Prosecutors had said during the trial that Amiri
"knew that the ship had exceeded its normal capacity but still forced the
boat to leave for Australia".
While Amiri was only tried for the 21 June incident,
police said he had confessed to successfully organising three other boat
journeys.
Prosecutors said Amiri had an indirect link with
Afghan-born people-smuggling kingpin Sayed Abbas, who is in detention in
Indonesia and is wanted by Australian authorities through extradition.
Irfan said he collected around $1m from the 200 asylum
seekers, who paid as much as $5 500 each to be on the doomed boat.
People-smuggling has been considered a crime in Indonesia
since 2011 and carries a jail sentence of between five and 15 years under the
country's immigration law.
Canberra is struggling to deal with a steady influx of
asylum seekers arriving in Australia by boat, many of whom use Indonesia as a
transit hub, boarding leaky wooden vessels after fleeing states such as
Afghanistan and Iran.
Although they travel in relatively small numbers by
global standards, asylum-seekers are a sensitive political issue in Australia
and a likely hot topic in the nation's elections in September.
