Australia jails Indonesians for people smuggling

Australia has been hit by an influx of illegal immigrants in boats such as this one

By CNN's Rose Tang

BROOME, Australia -- A court in Australia's northwest has sentenced five Indonesian men to a total of 21 years in jail for smuggling people from Afghanistan and Pakistan.

The captain and the crew of an old wooden fishing vessel all pleaded guilty to taking 131 men to Christmas Island, an Australian territory 218 miles (350 km) south of Indonesia in early May.

Skipper Eduardus Bria, 22, was sentenced to five years in jail, while his four crew members Thamrin Palingai, 48, Sulbari Suki, 36, Said Salamai, 31, Yanuar Syahkubat, 36, were each given four years in prison.

A district court in Broome on Australia's northwest coast on Tuesday heard that each passenger paid between $4,000 and $5,000 for the trip.

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The Australian Federal Police based in Broom told CNN the crew forced the passengers to swim to shore in rough waters more than 100 meters off Christmas Island's rugged volcanic coast.

They had been sailing for 36 hours from Palantai Island in Sumatra. "Some of them had never seen the sea before and were very sick," said a Federal Police officer, who wished not to be named.

Only after the passengers handed more money and wristwatches did the skipper agree to take the boat to a wharf on the other side of the island, where they were spotted by the Federal Police.

The passengers are now in an immigration detention center in Derby in Western Australia waiting for their claims for asylum to be processed.

The Federal Police officer said a smuggling organizer approached the five crew members, who had been working as fishermen or truck drivers in Java, for the job.

The passengers had flown to Singapore or Malaysia before catching a ferry or another flight to Indonesia.

Influx of illegal immigrates

Australian authorities have intercepted more than 4,169 illegal immigrants on 51 boats since July 2000. The previous year there were a total of 4,434 people on 76 boats.

Illegal immigrants arriving in Australia since 1999 have been mainly from Afghanistan and Iraq, though previously the arrivals had been mostly Chinese, according to the Australian Immigration Department.

The department says the recent spate of illegal boat arrivals have been from various spots in Indonesia. "People smuggling is dynamic and fluid. Routes and methods of arrival can change at short notice in response to action to combat the practice," says the department in a statement.

A recent report from the Australian Institute of Criminology found people smuggling had become much more sophisticated.

Small wooden boats are now being replaced by larger, steel-hulled ships with high-tech navigation equipment, capable of traveling longer distances, including direct from China to Australia.

Australia's immigration minister Philip Ruddock toured Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam in mid-June amid a surge in the number of people entering Australia illegally through organized criminal gangs.

Ruddock had discussions with government ministers and officials in Jakarta and Bangkok about how to deal with people smugglers and illegal immigrants.