Kuwaiti family cleared of refugee fraud

Najm Al-Ali was left stateless after the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. Picture / Greg Bowker

A Kuwaiti family alleged by Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters to have cheated its way into the country has been cleared of any wrongdoing after an investigation by the Department of Labour.

While in opposition last May, Mr Peters accused the father, Najm Al-Ali, of being an Iraqi who falsely claimed refugee status and then fraudulently brought members of his family into the country.

The New Zealand First leader made the claims to highlight border control problems along with other accusations against "undesirable" Iraqis living here.

In response to an official information request by the Herald the Department of Labour has said there did not appear to be a problem with the Al-Ali family, which had waived its privacy rights to the Herald in order to clear its name. Peter Elms, immigration profiling group manager, said the department had "thoroughly assessed" the case of the family and concluded there was insufficient evidence to warrant any further action.

Mr Al-Ali did not want to make further public comment on the case.

Mr Peters said yesterday he was still waiting to hear from the Associate Minister of Immigration, Clayton Cosgrove, whether DNA tests had been done to establish whether the family relationships were bona fide.

He had alleged some of Mr Al-Ali's 14 children were actually his grandchildren.

He said the family had used false documents, and that Mr Al-Ali charged family members $30,000 each to get into the country.

Mr Peters had said he would prove the family was lying.

The Department of Labour said is would not divulge whether it used DNA testing on the family for privacy reasons. Mr Al-Ali denied he was an Iraqi and has shown the Herald copies of birth certificates showing the family was originally from Kuwait.

In 1991 they had been shunted into Iraq after its occupation of Kuwait and were left stateless like 40,000 others.

After the story of the family's angry denials was run Mr Peters accused the Herald of failing to investigate the matter and said Prime Minister Helen Clark was "guilty of the most serious neglect of duty".

Last August two Iraqi men sought an apology from Mr Peters, who had accused them of being Saddam Hussein's men, but got the brush-off from the MP. The men said Mr Peters had never produced any evidence to back his claims.

Mr Elms said the Department of Labour had made inquiries into a number of people named by Mr Peters in Parliament but would not comment on whether those people were refugees.

That would contravene the Immigration Act 1987 which required the confidentiality of refugee claimants to be maintained. In addition to Mr Al-Ali the cases of a further six individuals were reviewed by the department as a consequence of allegations made by Mr Peters.

Of these two people were appealing against immigration decisions to independent authorities, one person remained under investigation, one person was unable to be identified, and two people were assessed as not warranting further action.

He said the department's review of immigration applications approved between March 2003 and April 2005 was continuing.

An initial screening process had reduced the number of applicants for assessment to about 1800.

"At this stage the review has not identified any individual who warrants further action."

Mr Elms said that since the inception of the department's fraud unit in 2002, nine refugees had been convicted of identity fraud and the department was in the process of having their refugee status revoked.