By TONY STICKLEY
A former commander in the mujahideen in Afghanistan has been denied refugee status in New Zealand because of alleged crimes against humanity.
The man, whose name is suppressed, has gone to the High Court in Auckland to have the Immigration Service ruling overturned.
Yesterday, Mark Woolford, representing the Attorney-General
and the Refugee Status Appeals Authority, gave an undertaking to Justice Tony Randerson that the man would not be deported before a full court hearing early next year.
The man, who arrived with his brother in November 1998, applied for refugee status on the basis that he was at risk of persecution from the Taleban as he had once been a commander in the mujahideen and was later involved with Western organisations involved in the reconstruction of Afghanistan.
He was interviewed in August 1999 by the Refugee Status Branch of the Immigration Service.
The RSB recognised that he was a refugee under the Refugee Convention.
But it excluded him because he was allegedly found to have committed crimes against humanity.
When the matter went to the Refugee Status Appeals Authority this year, the decision to deny him refugee status was upheld.
The appeals authority went so far as to suggest that the man's brother, who was granted refugee status, should not have been.
Lawyers acting for the appellant at the High Court deny he committed any crimes against humanity.
The nature of those alleged crimes was not specified in court yesterday.
At one point in the brief preliminary hearing, Justice Randerson observed that the situation in Afghanistan appeared to have changed.
Mr Woolford agreed that the situation now seemed "somewhat fluid".
After yesterday's hearing, the man's lawyer, Chris Tennet of Tauranga, denied that his client had been involved in any kind of atrocities.
"He was said to be in a group, some of which indulged in crimes against humanity - not him personally.
"It's not like he was the butcher of Kabul or anything.
"He wasn't involved in any war crimes."
The group in which he was involved was said to have shot soldiers and unarmed civilians, and also to have run a prison.
Mr Tennet, who was represented at the hearing by Simon Laurent, said there was procedural unfairness in the way the man's refugee application had been dealt with.
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