On the face of it, being charged with inciting a breakout from Curtin Detention Centre and being held in the Maximum Security section of Broome Jail should have been rock bottom and an extremely difficult position to recover from.
By the nature of my circumstances and my location—in a small cage with four beds and a steel toilet—I was keeping some pretty shady company, sharing my days with people charged over serious criminal matters. Stereotypically, one of my cell mates was Aboriginal and charged with murder; the other was from an Asian background and was facing drug charges.
And when it came to my court appearance, the company in the holding area wasn’t any more select. The two people in there with me were accused of child molestation.
But, even taking all this into account, from the moment I stepped foot into Broome Jail nothing was ever quite the same—and certainly never as bad as it had been for me at Curtin.
For a start, I was now known by my name—Munjed Al Muderis. Even to this day, the sound of hearing my name provides a wonderful contrast with being known as detainee 982. Which had been my only identity for the previous seven months.
After the initial court appearance, which was merely a remand and adjournment, I went back to my prison cell. I had access to various additional facilities and was afforded a level of respect that had been denied me since my arrival all those months ago from Christmas Island. There was a television, a telephone and even a pool table. On top of that, I was paid something like $13 a day. And the food, after the rubbish we’d been served in Curtin, was nothing short of brilliant.
Don’t get me wrong, there were still major challenges. While the court had told me I was entitled to legal representation, the people from Legal Aid didn’t believe I was eligible because I wasn’t an Australian citizen. As usual, I turned to my mother. It was marvellous to be able to make a phone call, unlike at Curtin, but it certainly wasn’t easy when I had to begin the conversation by saying: ‘Hi, Mum! Guess what, I’m in jail. And, not only that, in Maximum Security!’
Naturally enough, my mother was shocked at this latest turn of events—which she must have thought maintained my momentum of lurching from one complete disaster to the next. For the first time I could remember, she didn’t know what to say or do. Fortunately, I was able to reassure her that my situation was a million times better than it had been in the detention centre. And, even though I was forced to wear the standard prison garb of green top and green pants, at least I could put them into the laundry and get a clean set.
Then I rang Dr Al Jabiri to let him know what had happened and discuss the latest developments. He was as supportive as he could be.
The prison guards were a big advance on the goons at the detention centre. At least these guys were professionals, had proper training and knew what they were and were not allowed to do. And you could talk to them.
At one point, I asked them why I was being held in Maximum Security. They explained that Broome Jail was essentially a Minimum Security facility and prisoners were allowed to come and go. But because I was a detainee, that couldn’t happen. So they had no alternative to tucking me in Maximum Security.
In Broome, I had my first experience of being handcuffed. I had declined the opportunity to wear the cuffs when I was initially charged in Curtin. But this time there was no discussion. Every day when I went to lunch or dinner with my cell mates, we had to be transferred to the dining room in the main area of the jail. The stretch between Maximum Security and the rest of the jail was across a courtyard that wasn’t secure so, routinely, the three of us were handcuffed together and led across the yard and back. That was the only thing I felt even remotely uneasy about in Maximum Security.
Sure, the company wasn’t necessarily what I would choose, but it was interesting and, in plenty of cases, preferable to the detainees. One of my cell mates, the accused drug dealer, didn’t talk much and that was fine with me. My other cell mate, the killer, I got to know quite well. He had handed himself into the police, admitted what he’d done and was awaiting trial for murder. I taught him to play chess and we played regularly and talked. Along the way, I learned that he had absolutely no remorse about what he’d done, because he believed the man he’d killed had raped his daughter. He also taught me about his Aboriginal culture. In return, he asked me about Islam and Arabic culture. They were quiet and often deep conversations and he seemed to me to be a peaceful person.
Not long after I arrived, another group of sixteen detainees was brought into the jail. They were the people who’d been charged with rioting and being the leading trouble-makers during the breakout. They came into Maximum Security as well, until pretty much the whole section was filled with detainees.
These were the most violent of the inhabitants of Curtin. Initially, I felt uneasy in their company, especially because of the surrounding rumours and conspiracy theories. Happily, though, things settled as the days passed. The others from Curtin were just as excited as I had been when they discovered conditions were so much better. And they made the most of it, many of them playing pool for large parts of their waking hours. So even these insurgent types seemed less aggressive in jail, which proves what an explosive environment Curtin had become.
We were in Broome for a few days before being transferred to Karratha Jail, 830 kilometres to the south, in a large prison truck. The inside of the truck was sparse. Small windows and a toilet in the middle. We were sitting on metal benches and if we needed to go to the toilet, we had to do it in front of everyone else. To make it worse, it was like an oven inside the truck. We were all sweating profusely. That many people sweating profusely in a confined space is never going to be a pleasant experience.
The journey was interminable. We left early in the morning and it must have taken twelve hours or more to reach Karratha. It was horrible.
The reason we were transferred from Broome to Karratha had nothing to do with our protection or comfort. Simply, they couldn’t hold that many people for any length of time in Broome Jail. Certainly not long enough to prepare the case against me or the other detainees. Karratha, on the other hand, was a much bigger jail with far more Medium Security cells.
Not only was there more room, but we had individual cells—which was a luxury! The facilities were much more extensive, too. For example, there was a football field—so we could kick a ball around through the empty hours of the day. And we could have a shower whenever we wanted.
Importantly for me, there was a library where I could read books and study. Straightaway, I went into the library to check what was on offer, although most of the time I was reading my constant companion, Last’s Anatomy. The only problem was that we weren’t allowed access to the internet. But that didn’t prove to be troublesome for long.
One of the Karratha prisoners had a computer and a TV in his room and was very knowledgeable about information technology. I think he was in jail for punching someone. No matter, he was very sympathetic to my story and helped me write material to send to Amnesty International.
He managed to contact leading Australian human rights activist Chris Sidoti, who, at the time, was the Australian Human Rights Commissioner. And although we weren’t allowed to send emails from jail, we did phone him.
Following the discussions with Amnesty and Chris Sidoti and a phone call by Dr Al Jabiri, I was contacted by Perth solicitor, later barrister, Laurie Levy, who became my legal representative.
Meanwhile, the detainees in the jail had divided in two political groups. One was the Supreme Islamic Council faction. It was led by the ex-militant-now-physiotherapist I’d given an aspirin injection before we boarded the boat in Indonesia. As a member of the council’s militia wing, the Badr Brigade, he had been a sniper for the Iranian forces in the north of Iraq. During our time at Curtin he kept singing the praises of Iran and telling everyone how it had been a generous host to him. But he was verbally hostile towards me and even accused me of being the person behind the breakout. I had challenged him to prove it, of course, to which he replied that he didn’t need to because he’d heard other people talking about it. His group called themselves The Bears.
The second group was the Al-Dawa faction. Al-Dawa was the smaller political group in Iraq at the time, but its powerbase has risen in recent years and it’s run Iraq since the US takeover. This group was dominated by Iraqis.
The situation boiled down to a simple turf war—the two rival Islamic groups playing out their internecine rivalries in an Australian jail. Bizarre by anyone’s standard.
The time passed quickly in Karratha Jail. When I wasn’t studying, a good proportion of the remaining hours were spent with the inmate who was the IT expert. He was more than happy to support me in my case, because it helped him fill his days behind bars.
I wrote letters to Amnesty International and to the media—The Australian, The Age, as many outlets as I could find—about the situation in the detention centre. And, for the first time that I saw, there was serious and active interest in our plight. If nothing else, the mass breakout had sparked attention—from Amnesty, if not the media.
The letters I wrote from jail also triggered a dramatic change in my fortunes, not only because, in some small way, they exposed the public to the awful conditions in Curtin, but also because they acted as the background for my legal representative.
So I spent my days incarcerated at Karratha studying, writing, playing football and occasionally watching TV. And there were times when I just watched the kangaroos. There was an enormous number of kangaroos around the jail.
All against a background of relative comfort! The food was terrific. There was halal food for the practising Moslems among the prisoners. The authorities were very aware of, and attentive to, our cultural requirements. The cell was clean and relatively comfortable, with a single bed and my own toilet. There was no chair or desk, but I could sit on the bed. And the sheets were clean.
But, of course, there was still enormous uncertainty. I had no idea how my saga would end. In fact, I had no idea if the legal representative would even turn up. Nor how I would pay him. I had to work on the possibility that I might have to represent myself.
I realised if I was found guilty of organising the breakout, that would be the end of my journey. There was no way I would be able to follow a career in medicine and, most likely, my future would be serving time in an Australian jail followed by deportation back to Iraq.
Needless to say, I knew I was innocent. I knew I hadn’t committed any offence, beyond the initial entry into Australia without the necessary papers. But it didn’t mean I would be cleared of the charge.
Another problem was that I had not been presented with the actual charges I was to face, nor the evidence against me. All I had heard was that four or five people had written statutory declarations saying it was me who incited them to force their way out of Curtin. The whole notion was ridiculous. Apart from anything else, I had never knowingly met two or three of my accusers, let alone incited them to do anything or persuaded them to cut the wire fences at Curtin.
The stay of around a week in Karratha Jail was enormously productive, but came to an end when we were transferred back to Broome. The journey north proved every bit as awful as the trip south had been.
Back in Broome Jail, Chris Sidoti turned up.
When I met him, he emphasised that the federal government and the Department of Immigration were trying to prove a political point and we were just stuck in the middle. In itself, that message was reassuring. But only to a degree. In essence I think he was still on a fact-finding mission to clearly establish details of the conditions in the detention centres.
Chris’s visit was followed by the arrival of Laurie Levy. I talked to him for an hour and handed him the background material I’d prepared in Karratha Jail. As you’d expect, he was more specific about the legal side of things, saying there wasn’t a strong case against me, but it would depend on the witnesses.
So, regardless of my innocence, I was entirely at the mercy of the judicial system and whether the evidence presented would reflect the truth.
I didn’t know it at the time, but the magistrate who was to hear my case was an interesting character. His name was Antoine Bloemen. He was born in Belgium in 1941, joined the merchant navy and sailed the world, before settling in the US where he enlisted in the army and became a paratrooper. The story goes that after he and his wife visited Western Australia she persuaded him to move there. Bloemen then studied law at the University of Western Australia, before working his way through the legal ranks and becoming a magistrate in the remote Kimberley and Pilbara region in the north of the state. He took an unconventional view of the legal system and introduced a number of initiatives to make it more accessible to Indigenous people, such as staging hearings in community buildings and inviting Aboriginal elders to sit with him. After his retirement in 2008, he became a member of the Advisory Board for the Kimberley Institute, a not-for-profit organisation that aims to improve conditions for the people of the region.
Bloemen’s handling of my case was characteristically single-minded.
Laurie, who was representing me pro bono, arrived on a Thursday evening ready to head into court at nine o’clock the following morning and request an adjournment. His role was as instructing solicitor—preparing the way for the barrister who would be representing me when the case was finally heard. The barrister, Robert Richter from Melbourne, had phoned the authorities to request an adjournment, saying there was insufficient time to prepare the case for the defence. Laurie, meantime, was there to research the case and handle the preliminaries before I went before the magistrate. He had promised his wife he’d be back home in Perth for the weekend.
It didn’t quite work out that way.
The magistrate completed the other cases on his schedule at four o’clock on the Friday afternoon. But rather than simply adjourn the case until Monday morning, he said he’d hear it at five o’clock that afternoon. Which sparked all sorts of furrowed brows as everyone desperately tried to prepare a cogent argument for an adjournment. Eventually, Bloemen agreed to delay the hearing—but only until Sunday!
Like everyone else involved, Laurie was caught unprepared—and, from starting out as instructing solicitor, he was instantly elevated to my lead, and only, defence lawyer.
My case was set down to last two days.
I was led into the court in handcuffs, charged with inciting a riot. In line with legal procedures, the prosecution presented its evidence first. And, to my delight and amazement, it wasn’t long before the case against me started to unravel.
The first and second witnesses, who were supposed to be naming me as the ring leader of the breakout, denied any knowledge of my role in the incident. Essentially, they were saying they hadn’t made the statements themselves—instead, the documents had been prepared by others for their signature. They admitted they hadn’t spoken to me about the breakout, didn’t know anything about my alleged involvement and didn’t know why they were there in the first place.
I can’t begin to explain what a relief it was to hear that testimony. Clearly, it was an enormous blow to the prosecution to see their case crumble before their eyes.
Very quickly it also became obvious the woman who was running the prosecution had never been to Curtin. At one point, she asked one of their witnesses whether he’d talked to me on the grass at the detention centre. He said he had. It was demonstrable nonsense because there was no grass at Curtin—it was all desert!
Later, one of my witnesses, an engineer friend named Rafid, underlined the point when he was posed the same question. ‘What’s grass?’ he asked. Like everyone who’d been there, he hadn’t seen any grass at Curtin. To give the observation even greater emphasis, those were the only words of English he spoke during the hearing. The rest of his evidence was in Arabic.
The magistrate adjourned for lunch and I was left in the courtroom with one of the prosecution witnesses. Naturally, we were given strict instructions not to talk to each other. But no one else was there and he came up to me and said, ‘Please forgive me.’ Which, in Iraqi culture, is a tradition when you don’t want to die with something on your conscience.
He seemed to be under the impression he would be given favourable treatment if he provided evidence against me. He told me that on the way to the court, the ACM officials had taken him and their other witnesses to the beach and bought them a burger each. He added that, in return for their testimony against me, they’d been promised the immigration officials would look after them. I guess he may have been one of the asylum-seekers who’d broken out of Curtin but didn’t want to be jailed or sent back to the Middle East.
As soon as the court resumed, I told Laurie what had happened and he raised the issue in court. The witness was then questioned about it.
When the court’s attention turned back to the breakout itself, one witness claimed I had spoken to him in front of the gates at Curtin. Others claimed I had spoken to them at exactly the same time, but in completely different places. The prosecution’s case was looking weaker all the time.
On the second day, we had a chance to present the case for my defence. We had four witnesses—Doha, her sister Noor, her aunt Hoda and Rafid the engineer. They were consistent in saying that I’d been with them at crucial times during the breakout and that I had nothing to do with it. Which was the truth.
Finally, I had to take the stand.
I was asked whether I had spoken to Dr Al Jabiri. I said I had but we had never talked about breaking out of the detention centre. A lot of questions seemed to focus on the role of Dr Al Jabiri—to the point where it almost appeared it was him on trial rather than me.
The prosecution was attacking the credibility of Doha and her family, suggesting they would benefit by me becoming a doctor in Australia. Apparently, I would make their lives very comfortable. That was ridiculous, because Doha and I were nothing more than friends at that stage. And I had absolutely no guarantees about my future—whether I would be allowed to stay in Australia, let alone whether I would be able to work as a doctor.
The end came on Monday afternoon. Magistrate Bloemen—in his own idiosyncratic style—dismissed the case by saying he ‘found the prosecution witnesses slimy’! And that was about all he said.
Not exactly the extensively argued judgment you’d expect in a court of law.
A couple of dozen people were watching the proceedings, including some of the police officers and prison guards who’d taken me to the court. As the verdict was announced, the courtroom erupted in cheers. Amazingly, the prison guards and police officers were among those applauding. It was an extraordinary show of support. Laurie Levy later said he’d never experienced anything quite like it.
It’s hard to explain what a relief it was to hear the verdict. While others were cheering, I was crying. With relief.
But that wasn’t the end of the matter. Once I’d been acquitted, the authorities had to decide what to do with me. On the one hand, I was free to go. On the other hand, I wasn’t because I had to return to Curtin.
How would I get back there? My witnesses had travelled to Broome court by car. And when I saw Doha afterwards, she asked me to go back in their vehicle. As you can imagine, I was enthusiastic about that idea. Being in the midst of a friendly group for the first time in weeks would have boosted my spirits enormously. But when I spoke to the detention centre guards, they told me in no uncertain terms it wasn’t going to happen. They insisted I would be travelling back to Curtin with them.
In the end, we took the journey back in two vehicles. Doha and her family in the first and me following behind with the guards. When we arrived at Curtin, Doha’s family went into the main compound and I could hear detainees asking them what had happened in court.
My first night of my newfound freedom should have been a dream come true. Instead, it turned out to be a nightmare. I spent it in solitary confinement in a wooden box that was roughly 2 by 2 metres in size. No windows. It was the suicide monitoring cell.
In the tight confines of the cell I was trying to sleep on a slender mattress with a fluorescent light which was on twenty-four hours a day and with a camera recording my every move. A peephole the size of a 50-cent piece in the door was my only contact with the outside world. No natural light, no bed, no pillow. Back to the deplorable conditions in detention without any sort of interlude or opportunity to celebrate my acquittal. Back to man’s inhumanity to man.
There was no explanation why I was in solitary. And at first I didn’t ask any questions.
But if I was in any doubt that I was back in the detention centre, in the evening, I was delivered a takeaway plastic container of dreadful food. I ate it and slept. And, despite the surroundings, slept very well after the events of the day.
The next morning the detention centre guards brought me in more food in a plastic container. I wiled away the day wondering when this would all end. But when they brought me dinner in a standard plastic container that evening, I realised something was seriously amiss. At that point, I asked what was going on. But no one rushed to provide an explanation.
A day later, one of the officers suggested they were rehabilitating me after spending time with criminals in jail. The claim was utterly ridiculous and I responded pretty badly, saying: ‘Oh yeah, rehabilitating me in a room where the light won’t turn off!’
On the third day, I asked to speak to someone in authority who could explain what was going on. No one came. I was completely ignored.
When they brought me dinner, I told them: ‘There’s no point. I’m not going to eat. Until someone gives me an explanation, I’m on hunger strike. I’m locked in a tiny room in solitary confinement under twenty-four-hour watch. I’m not going to eat or drink until I get an explanation.’
Shortly after, Greg Wallis, the detention centre manager, came to see me and asked: ‘What do you want?’
He went on to claim the authorities had genuine fears for my safety inside Curtin and that I might be harmed or harm myself. That was why they were keeping me in solitary confinement.
I wasn’t about to swallow that. ‘That’s bullshit,’ I said. ‘Give me the real reasons. I’ve been to court and the court has found me innocent.’
Wallis corrected me: ‘The court couldn’t find you guilty.’
The discussion of the merits of the court’s findings went on until I told him: ‘I don’t care what you think, I won’t be eating or drinking until I know what’s going on.’
That elicited a few more details. Wallis insisted I wouldn’t be going back into the general compound and he made it clear that wasn’t negotiable until a decision was made on whether I would be staying in Australia.
I repeated my decision not to eat or drink until he was completely honest with me.
He wasn’t happy. ‘God, you’re a pain,’ he said. ‘What do you want?’
I told him I didn’t have extensive demands. I was quite happy not to mix with most of the people in the detention centre, but I wanted Doha to be able to visit me in solitary confinement and I wanted access to a phone to call my immigration agent each day.
His response was unexpected. ‘Is that all?’ he said.
I already had my trusty medical book with me, so I confirmed those were my only requirements.
He agreed but asked again: ‘And that’s all you want? And then you’ll end your hunger strike?’
I laughed. ‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ I told him. ‘It’s all a stupid game. I’m just playing your game.’
Before he left, Wallis seemed to me to be making a point of letting me know that I may have won the battle, but the war was still going on.
His approach summed up the government policies of the day and the mentality of the detention centres. It was all a political and personal power struggle. There was little or no thought given to the people who were embroiled in this petty posturing. It was all about point-scoring. Showing that you were in charge and would not be challenged. All completely mindless. No one was demonstrating any moral values, compassion or judgment. They all appeared to think the prizes would go to the individuals who could show they were tougher than anyone else. All focused on themselves, rather than taking a common sense and reasonable approach to the people and the issues involved.
I still shudder when I think about those attitudes and run into people who demonstrate the same idiotic and disrespectful approach. Behaving like a thug is unacceptable under any circumstances—whether it’s in a political, professional or social setting, or in detention centres.
The following day, Doha came to see me and I was transferred from suicide watch to the area known as The Hotel. There was a bed with a pillow and sheets. I had my own toilet and a small outside courtyard area. It was still basic and uncomfortable, but it was a considerable improvement. There were other rooms in The Hotel, but no one was in them at the time. The only minor disruption was when other detainees were brought in. Then I had to be locked in my room. That happened quite often, but was an inconvenience I could cope with.
I had two guards overseeing me at all times. Some of these guards were decent blokes. Over the forty days I was in The Hotel, I got to know about eight of them. They were supposed to keep me inside my room, but they didn’t. I started playing Scrabble and chess with some of them.
Overall, it wasn’t bad. I could study and relax largely undisturbed. And a major benefit was that I had access to clean toilets!
At one stage, they brought in a detainee named Abu Doaa. He was in his fifties, bald with glasses, and was apparently quite outspoken so the authorities said they feared he would be attacked because of his views. I found him to be a peaceful kind of person. In fact, he seemed naive to me, because when Saddam allowed other political parties to be registered in the 1990s, Abu Doaa registered a new party. He was promptly arrested and tortured—and had to escape from Iraq as a consequence.
We got to know each other in the four or five days he was there—and one thing I quickly established was that he was a strong chess player. As we talked, it emerged that he knew my family and had actually played chess against my father. He told me stories about my father playing against ten people at the same time. Abu Doaa himself was an extremely experienced player—he beat me in something like 70 per cent of the games we played!
He was in solitary confinement for some of the same reasons as me—the detention centre was a hotbed of discontent, rumour and intrigue. Under those conditions, a lot of personal animosities built up and it wasn’t unusual for detainees to report others for perceived or entirely fabricated misdemeanours. I lost touch with him after that and I have no idea where he ended up or what happened to him.
I spent a lot of time studying my medical textbook, which I read from cover to cover several times. With the benefit of hindsight, that period in solitary confinement served me well. It helped me master the subjects that would be the basis for my future and eventually helped me get a job in Australia and pass my exams to become an orthopaedic surgeon—which, trust me, are some of the most difficult exams anyone can undertake.
To this day, I still have that book. In fact, it contains the names, phone numbers and email addresses of many of the people who were crucial in helping me through the detention centre ordeal.
Almost as soon as I had returned from the court case, I started hearing rumours that detainees were being granted visas and were leaving Curtin. Doha would come in to see me for twenty minutes or half an hour every second day and she would tell me the camp was emptying. I’m sure this included Ali and Hussein, the two companions who’d shared this journey all the way from Amman. We hadn’t spent a great deal of time together during our detention in Curtin. Naturally, I saw them around the camp each day but they were quiet and mostly kept to themselves. I lost touch with them after they left the detention centre and I have no idea where they ended up.
Of course, being in solitary confinement, I had to rely on Doha’s reports of the number of detainees being released into the community. I couldn’t see it for myself.
Even so, I was encouraged by the news and my attitude changed. As the days passed, I began to realise that it was only a matter of time before my ordeal would be over. I was phoning Dr Al Jabiri regularly to find out what was going on and he was updating me on the latest developments.
Events were unfolding rapidly by now and, within a couple of days, I was instructed to undergo a blood test and chest x-rays. When I heard that, I knew the end wouldn’t be far away for me, either.
In mid-August, Doha came in and told me that all of her family had been granted visas and were being flown to Brisbane. She said she wouldn’t see me for a while, but would phone when she could.
The next few days were some of the toughest for me because I had no definite indication of my fate and I was genuinely on my own. Doha and her family had been a lifeline and constant confidantes. My existence in the detention centre was much harder without them.
On 25 August I spoke to Dr Al Jabiri, who delivered the best news—my visa had been granted. But, unlike the rest of the detainees who’d been allowed legal entry to Australia that day, I wasn’t released immediately. In fact, the day passed as most others had over the last month.
I was becoming increasingly frustrated that I’d heard nothing while everyone else seemed to be packing their bags and leaving. I determined that the next day I would start asking questions to find out when I’d be released.
Then, late at night, Greg Wallis, accompanied by one of the guards, pushed open the door to my cell.
For the first time, he called me by my name rather than my number.
‘Munjed,’ he said. ‘I thought I’d come myself to give you your visa!’
It was some of the most welcome news I’ve ever heard. An incredible relief.
As usual, though, there was a catch. He went on with words that I interpreted as meaning: ‘Your visa has been issued, but I’ve decided I want to keep you here another day and, because you have money and speak good English, we didn’t think you’d need to be transferred. We’ll give you the money and you can look after yourself. I’ll get one of the officers to take you out onto the main road. There’ll be a bus coming from Derby around six o’clock in the morning. That’s the bus which will take you to Broome.’
To my knowledge, I was the only person who was ever simply dumped on the roadside rather than formally transferred to another city or town.
Perhaps Wallis believed this was the crowning glory, the ultimate way to show me how insignificant I was. To be honest, it was of very little consequence—a small inconvenience to me. In my mind, it merely confirmed what I had always thought about him.
But rather than dwelling on anything Wallis could dish up, I was thrilled that, after nine months, I would be getting out of Curtin Detention Centre in a matter of hours. And could, after all the turmoil, get on with the next chapter of my life.