Exclusive: The government has reached a confidential settlement with Barati’s family, who say they ‘fought for justice for Reza’
And thank you Ben Doherty for highlighting this:
Two men, Louie Efi and Joshua Kaluvia, were convicted of Barati’s murder and sentenced to 10 years in prison, later reduced to five years. They have since been released. Kaluvia worked for the Salvation Army inside the detention centre and Efi was a security guard for G4S.
The pair consistently maintained others – including expatriate staff working in the detention centre – were also responsible for attacking and killing Barati. “We have to take the blame for them,” Kaluvia told the Guardian in a prison interview in 2015.
Eyewitnesses gave statements to police and to court that up to 15 guards – from Australia and Papua New Guinea – were involved in attacking Barati, including kicking him as he lay on the ground. An Australian government report found Barati was killed by “a brutal beating by several assailants”.
Australia’s detention centre on Manus Island was ruled illegal by the PNG supreme court in 2017, which ordered that it be closed.
Obscenely overdue. Reza Barati - rest in peace.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Barati was 23 when he was beaten to death by guards and other contractors during a violent rampage inside the Australian-run offshore detention centre in February 2014.
His assailants attacked him with a length of timber spiked with nails, repeatedly kicked and punched him once he had fallen and dropped a large rock on his head.
The pair consistently maintained others – including expatriate staff working in the detention centre – were also responsible for attacking and killing Barati.
Eyewitnesses gave statements to police and to court that up to 15 guards – from Australia and Papua New Guinea – were involved in attacking Barati, including kicking him as he lay on the ground.
Freya Dinshaw, acting legal director at the Human Rights Law Centre, said Barati’s murder had become “a symbol of both the brutality and impunity of the offshore detention system”.
“Offshore processing has inflicted untold suffering upon people merely asking for safety while private security operators made multimillion dollar profits.
I’m a bot and I’m open source!
Sort of morbidly curious to know what these facilities were like. Was this an isolated case or a regular occurrence?
Well, the Tory’s in the UK have contracted the same people for their floating death camps… should tell you all you need to know.
