SIEV X people smuggling trial: Maythem Kamil Radhi found guilty

A man has been found guilty of facilitating a failed people smuggling plot that led to 353 asylum seekers drowning at sea.

Maythem Kamil Radhi has pleaded not guilty to the single charge of organising bringing groups of non-citizens into Australia.

Maythem Kamil Radhi has been found guilty of facilitating a failed people smuggling plot that led to 353 asylum seekers drowning at sea.

Radhi was found by a jury to have been instrumental in helping organise the doomed journey that claimed the lives of hundreds of Iraqi and Afghani refugees in October 2001, including 146 children.

The 46-year-old pleaded not guilty to a charge of organising bringing groups of non-citizens into Australia on the first day of his trial in the Brisbane Supreme Court on October 17.

After less than a day of deliberations, the jury returned a guilty verdict on Wednesday afternoon.

Iraqi-born Radhi, now a New Zealand citizen, fought extradition to Australia for more than a decade.

In 2019 he was extradited from New Zealand to Australia and charged with his role in the people smuggling plot.

His alleged co-offender Khaleed Shnayf Daoud was extradited from Sweden to Australia in 2003 and jailed for nine years in 2005 after being found guilty of involvement in the plot.

A third man, people smuggler Abu Quassey, who was found to be the ringleader of the plot, was sentenced to seven years in prison in Egypt after being convicted of causing death through negligence in relation to the plot.

Maythem Kamil Radhi is accused of helping facilitate a failed plot to bring hundreds of asylum seekers into Australia by boat from Indonesia in 2001. Picture: Supplied

Radhi’s eight-day trial in the Brisbane Supreme Court heard evidence the suspected illegal entry vessel (SIEV) X capsized and sank in rough seas during the journey from Indonesia to Christmas Island.

Six survivors who managed to get off the overcrowded boat before it sank were called to give evidence during the trial before Justice Lincoln Crowley.

The Crown alleged Radhi facilitated the operation by communicating with asylum seekers in the lead up to the boat journey, helping to move them between locations in Indonesia, and providing them with food.

In closing his case on Tuesday, Crown prosecutor Chris Shanahan said the jury needed to be satisfied of four elements in order to find Radhi guilty.

That included that he facilitated the proposed entry in Australia of five or more people, that he intended to do so, that at least five of those people did not have a visa and that he was reckless as to whether they had a right to come to Australia.

Mr Shanahan submitted the evidence of the six passenger witnesses had been “largely consistent”.

“It’s essentially six versions of the same story told from different viewpoints,” he said.

He said 21 years had elapsed since the events in question but the passenger witness accounts were “remarkably consistent”.

“If all of them agree after 21 years having come from different places, different families, different locations, then the prosecution says that you might be able to accept the evidence as being true because after such a long time it’s still remarkably consistent,” he said.

Instructing Lawyer for Maythem Kamil Radhi, Ivan Sayad. Picture: NewsWire / Sarah Marshall

Mr Shanahan pointed the jury to evidence that asylum seekers had been moved around Indonesia from Cisawa, to a staging point in Cipinas to await the boat’s readiness, before being taken to Sumatra days before the journey to board the SIEV X.

“All of the passenger witnesses, all of the passenger witnesses place Maythem in Cisawa, Cipinas and Sumatra. All of them,” he said.

“And they do so in the course of the movement of hundreds of prospective passengers across Indonesia in 2001.”

Mr Shanahan submitted that a “joint enterprise” between Radhi and others including Abu Quassey and Khaled Daoud “has been established beyond reasonable doubt”.

“The prosecution says that the evidence has shown beyond reasonable doubt that Maythem Radhi acted in concert with Abu Quassey and Khaled (Daoud) in facilitating the voyage of the SIEV X to smuggle hundreds of people to Australia,” he said.

Mr Shanahan said it was alleged Maythem’s motive was profit and that a witness had given evidence his circumstances changed after he became involved in the operation and he had a motorbike and “more money”.

“Here it’s alleged that this was a team of people smugglers selling places on a boat to Australia for profit, that the motive was money,” he said.

Defence barrister Mark McCarthy urged the jury to consider whether Radhi’s actions actually made any difference.

“I asked you at the start of the trial to consider at what point in this story did he do something that in fact made their journey to Australia easier,” Mr McCarthy said.

“I’m not going to suggest to you that he wasn’t there.”

Mr McCarthy told the jury if they found there was a reasonable hypothesis consistent with innocence open on the evidence, they must acquit.

“Consider exactly what he did do, or at least what you can be satisfied of him doing on the evidence and then have in mind specifically his state of mind at that time,” he said.

“Ask yourself did he at any time have the intention to facilitate, to make easier or make easy, the proposed entry into Australia of a group of five or more. Those are key phrases. The proposed entry into Australia.

“Not that he helped them while they were in Indonesia, did what he did at that moment that he did it have the intention of their proposed entry into Australia.

“When he was bringing people food, did he have that intention? When he was helping people on the bus, did he have that intention? When he was helping people onto the boat, did he have that intention? When he was enthusiastically talking to people about a successfully completed earlier voyage, did he have that intention?”

Mr McCarthy said it was not a choice between theories for the jury to consider.

“Members of the jury, it is quite a thing to sit in judgment of another human being but that is the task that you are called to and you have sworn of affirmed an oath that you will do so according to the evidence, not according to the theory, it’s for you to decide what you conclude, not for you to pick a theory.”

Mr McCarthy submitted Radhi’s role in the people smuggling operation should be looked upon as being “no higher than some sort of assistant”.

Maythem Kamil Radhi (right) was found guilty in a Brisbane court on Wednesday of facilitating a failed people smuggling plot that led to 353 asylum seekers drowning at sea in 2001. Picture: Supplied

Radhi was aged 25 at the time of the offending between July and October 2001.

But prosecutor Mr Shanahan submitted evidence of the passenger witnesses indicated Radhi and Daoud operated together and that one witness perhaps said it best when he told the court “Maythem and Khaled, Khaled and Maythem”.

Justice Crowley accepted Khaled played a more significant role than Radhi, pointing to evidence that he did “most of the talking” when they would talk to asylum seekers together.

The trial heard Radhi facilitated the journey by negotiating prices for travel, collecting money, keeping records of passenger names and payment details, visiting passengers at their accommodation, taking them food and providing them with updates on the voyage.

Radhi also helped move passengers between accommodation and sorted them into groups on the beach before helping move them on board small boats to the SIEV X.

Justice Crowley accepted Radhi did not know the state of that vessel before people arrived to board it.

He said evidence passengers gave about Radhi making comments to them on the beach before boarding the SIEV X such as “scam”, “cheat” and “bouri”, which one witness said meant “that will be the end of your life”, indicated he may have been trying to warn them about the dangers involved in taking the journey on the unseaworthy vessel.

Radhi was arrested in 2001 in the wake of the SIEV X sinking and spent six months in custody before he was released.

Radhi has also spent 1104 days in custody since being detained upon his extradition to Australia in 2019.

Crown prosecutor Chris Shanahan (right) outside court. Picture: Matthew Poon

Mr McCarthy said Radhi’s wife, a chef, and their three children aged 24, 17 and 12 all lived in New Zealand. He has not seen them for more than three years.

Radhi, his wife and their eldest child, then aged three, fled Iraq 21 years ago after his father was killed and his brother was the victim of an attempted kidnapping.

Mr McCarthy said Radhi would be deported back to New Zealand upon his release but the future of his visa in that country was uncertain in light of the criminal conviction.

The death toll of the SIEV X has long been reported to be 353, but the court heard the number may be much higher based on the evidence given by witnesses during the trial.

“The exact number of persons who perished and lost their lives is not known but it was likely in the several hundreds,” Justice Crowley said.

He said while he was not sentencing Radhi for causing those deaths, it was a relevant factor to take into account.

“…particularly in circumstances where you for financial reward were involved with a people smuggling group that sought to exploit desperate people who were prepared to do anything to come to Australia including risking their lives and taking their chances on the SIEV X,” Justice Crowley said.

Radhi was sentenced to seven years' imprisonment with a non-parole period of 1104 days – the time he has already served in pre-sentence custody.