Sri Lankan freed from Qld detention centre

news.com.au-May 29, 2013

KNEELING before a statue of Jesus in a remote Queensland church on Sunday, Jesurajah Vasanthan prayed to be freed from the detention centre where he was held.

On Monday his prayers were answered.

Mr Vasanthan sailed for 14 days toward Australia from Sri Lanka earlier this year before being captured by authorities on Christmas Island, off Western Australia.

"I am Tamil (an ethnic minority group in Sri Lanka) and I was afraid for my life so I had to leave," he told AAP.

Mr Vasanthan, 38, has spent the past three months at the Scherger Immigration Detention Centre, about 30km east of the Cape York mining township of Weipa.

On Monday he was told he had been granted refugee status and the following day he flew to Perth to make a new life for himself.

He's only been granted a temporary visa which will be reviewed in six months.

He can't work until a permanent visa is granted.

Mr Vasanthan, a former IT worker, told AAP he hopes he can remain in Australia and that one day his wife and eight-year-old child can join him from Sri Lanka.

"I am very excited about my new life but I miss them very much," he said while waiting for his flight to Perth from Cairns.

Mr Vasanthan spoke to AAP after a church service in Weipa last Sunday, days after seven Vietnamese men broke out of Scherger by climbing a fence.

He said the other detainees had no idea the men were planning to escape and all were shocked by the breakout.

He was surprised anyone would want to break out of the centre as the detainees are treated very well, he said.

Six men, aged 23 to 32, managed to board a plane at the local airport last Thursday and fly to Cairns, 770 kilometres away.

They were nabbed at a popular backpackers' lodge in Cairns later that day.

The seventh man was stopped before he could get on the plane.

He has not been charged but police say investigations are ongoing.

Immigration Minister Brendan O'Connor has ordered an independent review of the incident.

Mr O'Connor has asked Serco, the firm that runs Scherger, to explain how the men were able to escape and what was being done to stop more breakouts.

"Any escape from an immigration detention facility is unacceptable," he said.

Serco has not responded to requests for an interview.

However, a spokesman said in a statement that Serco was taking the incident seriously and the firm was committed to providing a safe and secure centre.

The six men who escaped appeared in Cairns Magistrates Court on Tuesday where they were granted bail.

They were handed over to the Department of Immigration and will be transferred to an unspecified detention centre.

Five other Vietnamese men, two in Cairns and three in Weipa, have been charged with helping the escape.

Meanwhile, Mr Vasanthan has arrived in Perth and is coming to terms with life down under.

"I'm very excited and very happy," he said.

"I hope one day my wife and child can come here but at the moment what I needed was protection so I had to come here (to Australia)."

Read more: http://www.news.com.au/breaking-news/national/sri-lankan-freed-from-qld-detention-centre/story-e6frfku9-1226653186008#ixzz2UnoP75Gb