Immigration Minister says Sri Lankan girl doesn't deserve sympathy

By MATHEW DEARNALEY

Immigration Minister Lianne Dalziel broke her silence last night on the expelled Sri Lankan teenager, accusing the girl's lawyer of unethical manipulation.

She said that the 16-year-old girl and her grandmother did not deserve "one jot of public sympathy" after what she claimed was a pre-planned media campaign to resist being removed to Sri Lanka.

Ms Dalziel, who has until now left Associate Immigration Minister Damien O'Connor to face questions about the pair's expulsion, pointed to a letter lawyer Carole Curtis sent to the girl nine months ago. Ms Curtis included notes on the letter, written after the girl's bid to stay in New Zealand had been turned down a second time.

The strategy outlined by Ms Curtis included approaching the Commissioner for Children, the Prime Minister and, as a last resort, the media.

"I think New Zealanders have really been the subject of quite a deliberate campaign of manipulation," Ms Dalziel told 3 News. "I think it's unethical to have a strategy worked out nine months in advance to say we will present a one-sided case to the public, so that the public don't understand what's going on, to see if we can get some public sympathy."

The letter followed a change to the pair's original claim that they were victims of political persecution, to one of rape and sexual abuse of the girl by two of her uncles.

Ms Curtis could not be reached last night, but she said earlier that there was no doubt among psychiatrists and the Refugee Status Appeal Authority that the abuse occurred and that the pair made up the political persecution to hide their shame.

Fellow lawyer Philippa Cunningham, whose involvement in the case has been much more recent, said she was appalled by the minister's attack on a colleague who was doing all she could to help the girl.

Although it was not Ms Curtis who first approached the media, this would have been a legitimate strategy, she said.

"Carole is fighting for that child's life - it's as simple as that."

Mrs Cunningham said the letter was a note given to the girl to explain what was happening, and a drawing on it of a guinea-pig was simply to describe a possible pet for her, rather than evidence of manipulation.

She said someone must have rifled through the teenager's personal belongings left behind at the Mangere Refugee Resettlement Centre for the letter to have been made public.

She questioned that person's ethics.

Mrs Cunningham said she had yet to receive confirmation that the girl was receiving medical treatment in the Sri Lankan Catholic convent where she has been sent under what the Government says is a comprehensive care and protection plan.

Earlier yesterday, Ms Curtis told the Herald that the girl's grandmother had phoned her from Sri Lanka on Sunday, claiming that nuns had pushed her away and refused a request for an independent doctor to assess the teenager.

Psychiatrists who examined the girl the week before she was expelled last Thursday expressed serious concerns about dehydration but a doctor cleared her fit to fly from Auckland.

Dr Daniel de Klerk said in his report that the information was relayed by a Tamil interpreter, but the Immigration Service assured the Herald yesterday that the interpreter spoke the same Sinhalese language as the grandmother.

Spokesman Brett Solvander also denied that the girl was handcuffed during the flight or sedated beforehand, although he said she was taken aboard the plane in a "G Belt" restraint and given medication.

The girl's mother, who works in Hong Kong, says she has yet to hear any official word of how her daughter is doing.