Police hold Indonesian people smuggler

CANBERRA, Australia, Oct. 21 (UPI) -- Indonesian police are holding a suspected people smuggler whose wretched boats were intercepted recently by Indonesian and Canadian authorities.

Abraham Lauhenapessy was discovered hiding among the 255 asylum-seekers on board a 90-foot wooden boat. The Jaya Lestari 5 was towed by the navy into the western Java port of Merak just over a week ago.

Lauhenapessy is a known high-level Indonesian people smuggler who was released from an Indonesian jail in June after serving two years for human trafficking. Australian Federal Police have been keeping tabs on Lauhenapessy, 49, since his release from jail, according to a report in The Australian newspaper. He organized the latest trip aboard the Lestari 5 for a Malaysia-based ethnic Tamil people smuggler named Ruben, according to the investigators' record of evidence obtained by The Australian.

Some of the crew of the Lestari 5 told police that Lauhenapessy was supposed to have gotten off the vessel with several other Indonesian crew members as it neared Christmas Island where Australia has set up camps for boat people hoping to be allowed into Australia.

But a rendezvous ship never arrived, so Lauhenapessy was stuck on board, the report said. He along with fellow Indonesians Mansur Mamero, 50, and the captain, James Israel, 43, John Palele, 53, Ramses Kathiandago, 56, and Alfrits Mashaganti, 44, are in custody.

The Tamil refugees on the Lestari 5 still want to reach Australia, and some went on a three-day hunger strike last week.

Lauhenapessy is also wanted by Canadian authorities concerning a boat with refugees taken to the Pacific coast Canadian city of Vancouver last week. The Canadian naval frigate HMCS Regina intercepted the motor vessel Ocean Lady ship off the west coast of the island. The 76 "illegal migrants" on the rusting vessel reportedly paid their smugglers up to $45,000 each for a new life in Canada, the so-called Canadian Option, one of the migrants on the Ocean Lady explained.

The suspected asylum seekers are now being held in a jail in the city, according to the Victoria Times Colonist newspaper.

One of the illegal migrants on the Lestari 5 boat in Merak, Indonesia, is said to have identified the Ocean Lady as one of several boats under contract to Lauhenapessy. The person said they took Lauhenapessy's so-called Australian option because at $15,000 it was cheaper than the trip to Canada aboard Ocean Lady.

The news comes as Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd is expected to arrive in the Indonesian capital of Jakarta for talks on strategies to halt the illegal trade of smuggling people to Australia.

Rudd is expected to offer more money to Indonesia to improve its maritime surveillance and interception of refugee boats, The Australian newspaper report said. He may offer to relocate some of the current asylum seekers within Indonesia to third countries.

Meanwhile, the International Organization for Migration is negotiating with the refugees on the Lestari 5 in the port of Merak to leave their boat and move into temporary nearby shelter, the Jakarta Post newspaper reports.

Indonesia has yet to ratify the U.N. Convention on Refugees that defines refugee status for migrants. This means Indonesian officials are unsure of what they can and can't do with the boat people, whose status in the country is not clear, the Jakarta Post said.

If they are deemed to be "illegal visitors" then Indonesia could repatriate them. But if they are declared refugees or asylum seekers they then might have claims to stay in Indonesia or be sent to a third country willing to accept them.

The IOM said it is also in discussions with Indonesia's Foreign and Justice ministries about the next step for the boat people.

The IOM was set up in 1951 as an intergovernmental organization to work closely with governments and other intergovernmental and non-governmental organizations to resettle refugees. It has nearly 130 member states, and 17 states hold observer status.