May 3, 2024
Why wasn't accused properly monitored?
A cancer survivor and grandmother who was allegedly bashed at the hands of a freed immigration detainee says she can't understand why the man had his ankle monitor removed.
Ninette Simons, 73, and her 76-year-old husband Philip were victims of a home invasion after three men allegedly conned their way into her Perth home by pretending to be police officers.
Police allege Mr Simons was tied up and his wife bashed before $200,000 worth of jewellery was stolen.
"I don't feel safe here anymore, I don't. But I'm doing my best to live here I don't know," she told Immigration Minister Andrew Giles, who called during a Channel 9 interview on Wednesday.
Kuwaiti-born Majid Jamshidi Doukoshkan has been charged for his alleged involvement in the attack.
He was part of a cohort of about 150 detainees released after a landmark High Court ruling in the NZYQ case found indefinite immigration detention was unlawful.
The government is now facing scrutiny over why the 43year-old, who is accused of breaching his curfew one of the strict visa conditions placed on the cohort was not wearing an ankle monitor.
"That's what we can't understand, why was his ankle bracelet removed in March?" Ms Simons told Mr Giles from her Girrawheen home, adding that the government had "let her down".
WA Labor frontbencher Anne Aly visited Ms Simons at her home on Wednesday to discuss the issue with her.
Mr Doukoshkan faced court in February over alleged curfew breaches. Despite the government claiming otherwise earlier this week, the Commonwealth did not oppose bail.
The charges were later dropped due to a blunder that resulted in the Commonwealth reissuing visas for the NZYQaffected cohort.
He was wearing an ankle bracelet at the hearing in February but was not at the time of the alleged home invasion on April 19, after the Commonwealth's own protection board advised it was not necessary.
Mr Doukoshkan was again bailed days before the alleged attack, after being charged with a drug-related offence.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said his thoughts were with Ms Simons but passed the buck to the states over the man's bail.
"It's not appropriate for me to comment on individual cases, particularly ones that are before the courts," he told ABC radio.
Coalition home affairs spokesman James Paterson described the saga as a "litany of failures from start to finish".
He questioned why the government had yet to make a preventive detention application to the court which would allow individuals to be held for up to three years at a time if they were deemed by a court to be an unacceptable risk.
Senator Paterson said he'd be willing to make amendments to the powers, which were legislated in response to the NZYQ last November, if the threshold was too high.
