Fed: Govt needs info to investigate reported killings: Downer

AAP General News (Australia)
08-08-2006
Fed: Govt needs info to investigate reported killings: Downer

CANBERRA, Aug 8 AAP - The government will investigate claims failed asylum seekers
were killed after returning to Afghanistan if provided with further information, Foreign
Minister Alexander Downer says.

Mr Downer said he had only heard the claims through the media.

"If those making the claims wish to approach us to provide us with all of the details
we would obviously be happy to look into people being killed and the circumstances in
which they might have been killed," he said.

The Sydney-based Edmund Rice Centre for Justice and Community Education claimed last
night as many as nine men had been killed after returning to Afghanistan from the Australian
detention centre at Nauru.

Edmund Rice Centre researchers claim they learnt of the men's fate while conducting
interviews with former asylum seekers in Kabul.

Mr Downer said the government would need information on who the asylum seekers were,
how they were killed and the circumstances that led to them coming to Australia and being
refused asylum.

"All of these questions, if people want to have a debate about this, all of those questions
need to be answered," he said.

"And if they give us the information, we will obviously through DIMA (Department of
Multicultural Affairs) and my department do what we can to find out."

AAP jb/grc/sd

KEYWORD: DETENTION NAURU DOWNER

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