Australian authorities regain control of immigrant detention centre

Mr Dutton stated the police had used reasonable force against the detainees, the vast majority of whom were serious criminals including rapists and murderers, adding that a significant number of them were from New Zealand.

A detainee told Davis that his group of friends were not resisting but were physically assaulted by guards.

The detainee who escaped, named in the media as Fazel Chegeni, is believed to have scaled a fence, with his absence undetected for two hours.

“We’ll see what information flows back to me…but clearly in this case there’s been a failure”.

These were individuals for whom, after all, co-operation and good behaviour might not come as naturally as it would to asylum seekers. “He showed me his legal file at one stage, and I am really sorry I ever read it, because that man was most brutally tortured in Iran”.

Australian authorities dispatched reinforcements to the Christmas Island detention center, located in the Indian Ocean south of the Indonesian island of Java, after protesters set several fires, forcing the guards and other staffers to abandon the facility.

The “501s” refers to the group of detainees who have been sent to detention centres because they are non-citizens who have been sentenced to more than one year in prison. Those being removed may have lived in Australia since they were young, and have families of their own settled in the country, without applying for citizenship.

At least seven Christmas Island detainees have been flown off the island, reports Australia’s ABC News.

Inmates took over parts of an Australian detention camp for three days this week.

The current disturbance is the latest in a long series of protests on Christmas Island. Riot police stormed the facility, apparently using tear gas and rubber bullets.

“We need an independent and full investigation into the events that transpired following the death of a detainee outside the centre on Sunday, including the violent protests”, Mr Marles said.

Under its “Pacific Solution” started in 2001, the Australian government locks up refugees both on the mainland and far from its shores, including on Christmas Island, Papua New Guinea’s Manus Island and on the island nation of Nauru.

A group of detainees had been involved in a stand-off with staff following the death of a refugee on Sunday.

Christmas Island segregates detainees seeking political asylum from foreigners facing deportation for a variety of crimes such as rape.

As well as asylum seekers, Christmas Island’s facility is also used to hold noncitizens awaiting deportation, including criminals, after Canberra began cancelling visas of those with convictions.

Nor did the detention centre’s operator, Serco, have the wherewithal to re-establish control once it was lost, thus requiring the government to fly in an AFP contingent.