A DETAINED Indonesian refugee who beat his Australian spouse to death with a child’s bicycle should be released into the community and given $350,000 compensation for seven years of “arbitrary” detention, the Australian Human Rights Commission has found.
John Basikbasik, 51, a former West Papuan independence activist, has been repeatedly deemed too dangerous for release following decades of violent offending fuelled by alcohol. His offences include the manslaughter of his de facto wife in 2000 and numerous assaults during his seven-year jail term from 2001. He has been held in detention since 2007.
Mental health experts have assessed him as having a high or moderate risk of reoffending, citing his impulsive personality and lack of “insight” into his crimes. Basikbasik had failed to adapt to a Western lifestyle, one said.
HRC president Gillian Triggs accused successive federal governments, dating back to the Howard era, of breaching the man’s human rights by holding him in immigration detention rather than monitoring him in the community.
There are certainly a lot of crazies about, that’s for sure.
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