The lawyer representing the Manus Island refugee who escaped to Fiji says new charges brought against his client could be defendable under the rules of double jeopardy.
Loghman Sawari was deported back to Papua New Guinea in February and charged with using false information to obtain a passport.
The district court in Port Moresby threw out the charge on Tuesday, but not before the 21-year-old from Iran was re-arrested under similar charges.
PNG law prevents people from being charged twice for the same crime and the lawyer, Loani Henao, told Ben Robinson Drawbridge, such a double jeopardy defence could be possible.
Loghman Sawari in Fiji.
Photo: Behrouz Boochani
Transcript
LOANI HENANO: The first case was that my client Loghman Sawari provided falsified information to the migration authorities in Port Moresby resulting in him being issued with a PNG passport. That case was thrown out by the district court yesterday upon a no case mission we made about a week ago. And the basis for that was that the prosecution failed to provide evidence that he did receive a PNG passport and that the prosecution failed to afford him the constitutional right of remaining silent and the right to have access to a lawyer and the submissions were upheld by the district court and they threw the case out.
BEN ROBINSON DRAWBRIDGE: In the meantime, new charges were levelled.
LH: Two new charges were laid whilst we were waiting for the decision to be handed down. Both new charges were raised under the migration act. The first charge was under the PNG passport act. One of the new charges related to our client producing a patented departure card bearing false names and the other new charge is that our client fraudulently obtained passport in which an endorsement on the passport was unlawfully entered. So we've just received those charges and we do not know the facts on which those charges were founded, so we will have a look at them and defend the case.
BRD: But is there not a chance that this could be an instance of double jeopardy? Is he not being tried for the same thing twice?
LH: That's a possibility. Under the laws here it is a full defence to a case where a person who has been charged under a set of facts, which he was convicted, or acquitted of. And if under the same set of facts another charge is brought up again then the issue of double jeopardy will be raised.
Loani Henao says Loghman Sawari was in police custody for a week until bail was granted on the new charges last Thursday by the National Court.
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