Former Comanchero boss among 231 criminals kicked out of Australia
A former Comanchero boss suspected of being involved in 28 gang shootings is among dozens of unlawful non-citizens deported from Australia in just six months.
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A former Comanchero bikie boss is one of hundreds of criminals and undesirables who have been thrown out of the country since May.
One time sergeant-at-arms of the Canberra chapter of the outlaw motorcycle gang, Sosefo Tu’uta Katoa, 28, was deported after he lost a High Court appeal to stay.
Since the beginning of May – the month when Anthony Albanese formed government – 721 unlawful non-citizens have been removed from Australia on commercial and chartered flights back to their homelands.
Out of those, 231 were kicked out – more than one every day – after their visas were cancelled on character grounds under Section 501 of the Migration Act.
An Australian Border Force spokeswoman said while they do not comment on individual cases, non-citizens without a visa were removed from Australia as soon as practicable.
Katoa, a New Zealand national, had been charged with bomb possession, blackmail and convicted of multiple other offences, including a serious assault charge.
A court was told police suspected him of being involved in as many as 28 gang shootings and 33 cases of arson.
His visa was cancelled on character grounds. His lawyer was contacted for comment.
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But there a number of other New Zealand citizens still fighting their deportation.
Two brothers who co-founded an outlaw bikie gang in Australia, known as The Descendants, have lodged a last-ditch appeal to the High Court to stop being deported.
Tom and Perry Mackie, who migrated from New Zealand in the 1970s, were founding members of the motorcycle group now outlawed under South Australia’s anti-bikie laws.
They have had their visas cancelled because they did not pass the character test.
The former Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton made the decision they could not remain in the country based on advice from the Australian Federal Police which included assertions that the Descendants “played a ‘strong role’ in unifying other outlaw bikie gangs, such as the Hells Angels, Finks and Gypsy Jokers, against anti-biker legislation”.
The Mackies declined to comment while their case is before the High Court.
Convicted wife killer, Martin Toki, is also fighting deportation back to the Cook Islands where he grew up.
Toki, last month lost an appeal in the Federal Court to stop his deportation when he finishes his prison sentences for a string of offences, including a 22 jail term for bashing his de facto wife to death using a piece of wood.
Since being jailed for murder, Toki has been charged with committing more offences including lighting fires in his cell but he was found not guilty on the grounds he was mentally ill.
He is being held in the high security Forensic Mental Health Unit for the criminally insane at Long Bay jail.
The full bench of the Federal Court declined Toki’s appeal to stay, saying he had started offending as a juvenile soon after arriving in Australia and he continued to offend repeatedly, often violently, for in the 39 years he had been in Australia.
“He has spent only about 13 years in the community, because of the many substantial custodial terms imposed on him,” the Federal Court judgment said.
Originally published as Former Comanchero boss among 231 criminals kicked out of Australia