Key Points
- Said Imasi has been released from the Villawood Detention Centre.
- He has been detained in Australia for more than 13 years with almost no prospect of release.
- Mr Imasi is stateless, and has no identifying documents or knowledge of his birth date or name.
After more than 13 years in Australian immigration detention, stateless man Said Imasi is free.
Mr Imasi and his lawyer Alison Battisson confirmed he was released from Villawood Detention Centre on Tuesday.
It comes after several applications for protection visas, a series of attempts to verify his identity, and a High Court challenge.
The circumstances surrounding his release have not been made public, but independent MP Allegra Spender, who broke the news of Mr Imasi's release in a social media post on Friday, suggested it was a ministerial decision.
An Australian Border Force Media spokesperson told SBS News they could not comment on individual cases due to privacy obligations.
Ms Spender said she had met with Mr Imasi on Friday.
"The minister has made the right call. I am so glad to be a part of a Parliament where we are finally starting to right these wrongs," she wrote.
Who is Said Imasi?
Mr Imasi is stateless, meaning, according to the United Nations refugee agency UNHCR, he "is not considered as a national by any State under the operation of its law". Mr Imasi has no identifying documents and does not know his birth date or place, or even his birth name.
He believes he was born in Spain’s Canary Islands in 1989, before being taken to the disputed territory of Western Sahara as a newborn.
He then lived as an undocumented immigrant in several European countries, before arriving in Australia in 2010 and being detained at Melbourne airport on suspicion of holding a fake passport.
In the years that followed, he was shuffled between various Australian detention centres as attempts to verify his identity proved futile.
In 2019, his lawyers took his case to the High Court, attempting to overturn legislation that enables indefinite detention.
“He’s been in detention without charge for over nine years now,” Ms Battisson, director principal of law firm Human Rights For All, told SBS News in 2019.
“This something we are urgently seeking to change.”
The High Court rejected the attempt.
