“Men suspected of terrible war crimes remain free in Australia for years while other asylum seekers, innocent of everything except arriving illegally, are being locked up or fast-tracked out of the country.
“One of Saddam Hussein’s former personal bodyguards, Oday Adnan Al Tekriti, has been given temporary safe haven after initially being refused a visa when the Department of Immigration found there were serious reasons to consider he had committed crimes against humanity.”
Sadly, Australia has long been a haven for war criminals, starting with Nazis after World War II. Author Mark Aarons published, “War criminals, welcome” in 2001. He painted a picture of successive governments either unwilling or incapable of prosecuting war criminals. Aarons explained on ABC Lateline in 2001:
“Most of the war criminals who settled in Australia were not Germans or Austrians. They were people from Central and Eastern Europe, from the Ukraine, the Baltic States, the central European countries of Czechoslovakia, Croatia and Serbia.
“There’s no doubt at all over the last 10-12 years, a significant number, dozens, probably well over 100, senior Afghan war criminals have emigrated to Australia.”
War criminals are welcome in Australia.