EXCLUSIVE
A Bangladeshi man convicted of sexual assaults last month is among a group of visa holders walking free in the community despite facing court for serious offences.
The list includes a Syrian man on a protection visa who is out on bail accused of multiple domestic violence offenses and will not face a hearing until next year.
A Pakistani national on a student visa is also out on bail after being charged with offenses including intentionally recording and threatening to distribute an intimate image without consent, as well as attempted stalking and theft.
And a Sri Lankan man who was recently granted a protection visa is behind bars after allegedly being caught with child abuse material, drugs and ammunition, but has not attempted to apply for bail.
Immigration Minister Andrew Giles has been under increasing pressure to resign since the release late last year of more than 150 detainees, including murderers and sex offenders.
The High Court ruled in November that it was illegal to detain foreign nationals indefinitely if there was no prospect of them being removed from Australia.
Citizens of Bangladesh, Syria, Pakistan and Sri Lanka are among a number of visa holders who will face court on serious criminal charges. Pictured is a detainee released after last year’s High Court decision that indefinite detention is unlawful.
Daily Mail Australia has obtained a list of visa holders who have recently faced the courts in New South Wales and are not part of that cohort.
The 24-year-old Syrian man on a protection visa faced court in May charged with assault occasioning actual bodily harm, two counts of recklessly intentional suffocation of a person, three counts of common assault and one of stalking/intimidation.
All of those charges relate to domestic violence and the man is also the subject of an interim detained violence order.
Earlier this year, the same man was sentenced to an 18-month probation order after pleading guilty to driving with an illicit drug in his blood.
He has previous convictions for traffic offences, including driving without ever having had a licence.
The 23-year-old Bangladeshi man on a student visa was found guilty in May of two counts of sexually touching another person without consent.
A regional court magistrate sentenced the man to 20 months in prison, which he will serve under an intensive correction order.
Immigration Minister Andrew Giles has been under pressure to resign since the release late last year of more than 150 detainees, including murderers and sex offenders. Giles (left) is pictured with Prime Minister Anthony Albanese.
That means he won’t spend a day in jail, but instead will have to do 250 hours of community service work.
The 21-year-old Sri Lankan man on a protection visa was stopped by police in the state’s central west late last month and arrested after failing a roadside drug test.
A search of his car allegedly uncovered a large amount of child abuse material, as well as cannabis, methylamphetamine and ammunition.
He was charged with possession and dissemination of child abuse material, two counts of possession of a prohibited drug and possession of ammunition without a permit.
The man, who lived in Queensland before his arrest, did not apply for bail.
An Internal Affairs spokesman said the department did not comment on individual cases.
In the latest debacle to rock the Immigration Department, Giles retracted claims that drones were being used to monitor detainees released after the High Court ruling.
Having said that drones were used to surveil released detainees, Giles later admitted that the technology was not adopted for that purpose.
“I relied on information provided by my department at the time, which has since been clarified,” he said in a statement Monday.
Giles has also said that an updated ministerial directive allowing foreigners convicted of serious crimes to keep their visas would come into force within days.
The Administrative Appeals Court had used the controversial “order 99” to reinstate the visas of foreigners found guilty of such crimes.
Directorate 99 had prioritized an offender’s links to Australia and was implemented after New Zealand raised concerns that its citizens were being deported despite having no connections to their home country.
Giles has said the reworked direction would put more emphasis on the safety of the Australian community.
“It is clear that the Administrative Appeals Tribunal’s decision to reinstate these visas did not meet community expectations, and the 99 ministerial direction has not been functioning as the government intended,” he said on Monday.
“The government is on track to reform this regime and establish new direction before the end of the week.”
Giles said Monday that 30 visas for foreign nationals with serious criminal records were canceled last week.
“Community safety is our number one priority and we will always act in the interests of Australians,” he said.
