Asio’s willingness to use foreign evidence obtained under torture to detain an Egyptian refugee for more than a decade on security grounds meant Australia’s spy agency had “acquiesced in the use of torture”, the man’s lawyer has told the full bench of the federal court.
Sayed Abdellatif, an Egyptian national, has been exiled from his homeland for 26 years after being convicted in absentia in a discredited mass trial in Cairo in 1999 for offences he never committed. He arrived with his family in Australia by boat seeking asylum in 2012 – and they have lived in the Australian community for years.
