Indonesian kids accused of people smuggling win Australia court battle

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Six Indonesian children who were wrongfully jailed by Australia for human smuggling in 2009 have just won a court ruling that cleared their names after more than 12 years.

The six, who were aged between 13 and 17 at the time of their arrest, were intercepted on fishing boats in Australian waters in 2009. They were lured onto the boats from their impoverished villages with promises of work, and were caught by Australian authorities in what became known as a case exposing a grave and "substantial miscarriage of justice."

The children were unaware of their destination, or that they were transporting asylum seekers. 

After being caught, the children repeatedly told immigration officials that they were in fact children, which meant that they would have to be sent home. Instead, Australian police relied on the use of X-rays to determine the maturity of their wrists by comparing them to the bones of a healthy middle-class American. The X-rays were used by authorities to conclude the children were likely adults, and were charged as such.

The WA court of appeal overturned the convictions of Rudi Usman, Hamzah Gogo, Muhammad Maleng, Maikel Husa, Usman Ari and Vandi.

“The Crown has conceded that a miscarriage of justice was occasioned by each of the convictions; the judgments of conviction should be set aside; and judgments of acquittal should be entered,” the court said.

Doubts

Documents attached to the boys' case reveals that not only police, but also senior government figures had doubts about the X-ray's accuracy, even before the boys were jailed. 

Moreover, an investigating officer in some of the cases was also involved in a similar case eight years earlier when it was stated in court that using wrist X-ray evidence to determine age was open to error.

Despite all of these concerns, police still changed the children's year of birth on paper to turn them into adults and make their ages fit the X-ray reports.