SIEV-X mastermind on trial

BY SARAH STEPHEN

Mootaz Attia, known in Australia as Abu Quassey, a self-proclaimed people smuggler of Egyptian nationality, went on trial in Egypt on September 13 for the manslaughter of 353 people on the boat now known as SIEV-X ("suspected illegal entry vessel, unknown") that sank on off Indonesia on October 19, 2001.

Those who died were mostly Shiite Iraqis, refugees from Saddam Hussein's brutal regime. Only 45 people survived, 38 of whom have since found permanent refuge, mostly in northern European countries and Canada.

Following his arrest in Indonesia in November 2001, he served a six-month jail sentence for minor visa violations. He was released to return — in April 2003 — to Egypt.

Survivors of the SIEV-X sinking were being warned by Quassey's associates in the months after his arrest in Indonesia never to testify against him anywhere in the world on pain of retaliation.

According to human rights campaigner and former Australian ambassador to Poland and Cambodia Tony Kevin, Quassey is alleged to have grossly overloaded the 19-metre boat by force with the help of 30 armed Indonesian police.

The overloaded boat, with 421 passengers on board, was sent out to sea with the clear intention that it sink — as a brutal signal to deter other asylum seekers wanting to reach Australia.

Kevin claims there is evidence that Quassey was not a "genuine" people smuggler, but that he was a "sting" agent who was being protected and supported by powerful police elements in Indonesia.

Kevin believes that a semi-clandestine Australian government-run People Smuggling Disruption Program, which admits to having trained 20 senior Indonesian police in disruption techniques in 2000, may have as yet unadmitted prior knowledge of this doomed voyage.

From Green Left Weekly, September 24, 2003.

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From GLW issue 555