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Saddam personal bodyguard living in Australia - media
(Reuters)
Updated: 2005-12-05 10:43

One of Saddam Hussein's former personal bodyguards is living in Australia after initially being refused a visa, local media said on Monday, prompting criticism of the country's immigration system.

The Sydney Morning Herald said Oday Adnan Al Tekriti, 38, a member of Saddam's family and a major in his personal security force, had been living in Australia for six years.

The Herald said Tekriti, who also worked for Saddam's son Qusay tracking down dissidents, was initially refused a visa because of concerns he had committed crimes against humanity. The decision was overturned on appeal and Tekriti is now married to an Australian doctor and living in the southern city of Adelaide.

The newspaper said at least 30 men seeking asylum in Australia have been refused visas over the past 10 years on grounds they committed crimes against humanity, but many have remained in Australia for years due to a slow appeals process.

News that Tekriti is living in Australia prompted the Labor opposition to claim the country's immigration system had failed. It came on the day the government is expected to pass new anti-terror laws aimed at combating "home-grown" terrorism.

Labor immigration spokesman Tony Burke said that Australia's immigration character test was meant to protect the country from people who are considered dangerous.

"If the reports today have any validity, then you've got to say somebody who had the job for Saddam Hussein of chasing dissidents falls on the dangerous side of the equation," Burke told reporters.

"He should not have passed a character test. If this is the outcome, the system has got to have collapsed," he said.

The government was not immediately available for comment.

Australia, a staunch U.S. ally with troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, has never suffered a major peacetime attack on home soil. The country has been on medium security alert since shortly after the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States.

One state political leader has described the new anti-terror laws expected to pass through parliament on Monday as "draconian" but necessary, but they have been widely criticised by civil rights and law groups. The Law Council of Australia launched a national advertising campaign on Monday opposing the laws.

"The government is using the threat of terrorism to introduce laws that put our most basic civil liberties under threat. The ramifications have the potential to be as terrifying as terrorism itself," said the council's full-page newspaper advertisement

The new laws will allow police to detain suspects for seven days without charge, use electronic tracking devices to keep tabs on them and make support for insurgents in countries such as Iraq an offence punishable by a seven-year jail sentence.

The laws were proposed after the July 7 London bombings by a group of young British Muslims.



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