CANBERRA - Australia will resettle 42 Afghan men who were aboard a boat that had been intercepted by authorities when someone on board deliberately set off an explosion, killing five asylum seekers, an official said yesterday.

The blast occurred aboard the wooden boat on April 16 a day after it had been intercepted by the Australian navy about 600km northwest of the Australian coastal city of Broome, in Australian waters.

A naval patrol boat was escorting the asylum seekers to Christmas Island, an Indian Ocean territory where Australia has an immigration detention centre, when the boat exploded and sank.

Police said earlier this month that fuel was deliberately spilled across the deck of the boat and ignited, but that there was not enough evidence to charge any individual passenger.

Asylum seekers often disable their boats once intercepted by the Navy to avoid being forced back into international waters.

The government determined that the survivors were genuine refugees "because of the situation in Afghanistan and the potential threat to their lives," Immigration Minister Chris Evans told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation yesterday.

Evans said any refugee could lose his Australian permanent residence visa if convicted of a serious offence after a coroner's inquest into the incident due in January.

Western Australia state Premier Colin Barnett criticised the federal government for granting the visas before the inquest.

"I think they should have waited until after that inquest was held," Barnettsaid .

David Manne, of the Refugee and Immigration Legal Centre, said the government should allow the Afghans to stay regardless of who started the fire.

"It is extremely difficult to see how one could justify revoking or cancelling someone's visa when there has been clear evidence established that they'd face brutal human rights abuse on their return to their homeland," Manne told the ABC.

The Afghans are being held in detention centres in Perth and Brisbane.Two Indonesian sailors who also survived the explosion are being held on human-trafficking charges.

They are not suspects in the fatal fire.

- AP