Police plead with Immigration to allow convicted gangster to keep refugee status

SENIOR police lobbied for a top Brothers For Life gang member to have his refugee visa reinstated after he agreed to turn Crown witness and reveal everything he knew about his cohorts in court.

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SENIOR police lobbied for a top Brothers For Life gang member to have his refugee visa reinstated after he agreed to turn Crown witness and reveal everything he knew about his cohorts in court.

Immigration officials revoked the visa of the senior BFL Blacktown member last year after he was jailed for gang-related crimes.

Police wrote to immigration officials on his behalf after he agreed to give evidence against his gang leader, Farhad Qaumi, whose trial ended in guilty verdicts last month.

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Brothers 4 Life.

Farhad Qaumi.

Known as Witness G, his agreement with detectives was one of numerous sweetheart deals quietly approved by the NSW Police Force and NSW Crime Commission in their pursuit of Qaumi and the BFL gang.

Detectives have privately told The Daily Telegraph these deals have become routine in the fight against organised crime.

Without inducements for rollover witnesses, the ability to imprison gang chieftains would be severely impeded, they said.

Immigration Department documents reveal Witness G was granted a permanent refugee visa in July 2004.

By 2009 he had racked up charges including kidnapping, aggravated sexual assault, robbery, intimidating police and larceny.

His visa was cancelled on August 20, 2015, after being handed a four-year prison term for gang-related offences carried out while he was a member of the BFL.

The Department of Immigration and Border Protection would not confirm if Witness G’s visa had been returned as a result of the police lobbying.

A departmental spokeswoman said non-citizens could appeal decisions “in certain circumstances”.

Officers told the Qaumi trial that the letter was written on Witness G’s behalf because his help paved the way for several other gang members to co-operate with authorities, some of whom had intimate knowledge of murders and shooting offences committed by the BFL.

Aside from Witness G, deals were also done with other informants, though, in some cases, these were opposed by police.

Once such case involved a man who admitted kneecapping a fellow BFL gang member and shooting up a house.

He was granted an indemnity from prosecution, a move that went against official police advice.

Detective Inspector Steve Patton, one of several key officers involved in the Qaumi investigation, told the trial that the immunity granted to that witness seemed unnecessary.

“There was nothing to indicate that he (the informant) wouldn’t give the evidence without indemnity,” he told the court, adding that the man’s evidence was mostly being used to corroborate existing evidence.

“The crimes had, in effect, already been solved,” Insp Patton said.