Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison said his government will “boot out” a convicted child sex offender all the way back to his homeland Iraq once his prison sentence has been finished.
Iraqi-born refugee Mohammad Hassan Al Bayati, 30, was sentenced Tuesday for the sickening sexual assault of a three-year-old girl in December 2016.
He was working as a security guard at at a Sydney shopping centre when he took the girl away from the centre’s playground while her mother was Christmas shopping.
Security camera vision shows Al Bayati taking the girl into an area without surveillance, where he assaulted her. A jury found Al Bayati exposed his genitals and touched the girl’s underwear during the 11 minutes they spent in a stairwell.
The New South Wales District Court sent Al Bayati to jail for four-and-a-half years’ jail, with a non-parole period of two-and-a-half years.
He came to Australia by boat from Iraq in 2011, and was given a permanent protection visa to stay.
“This bloke has no right being here, he’s abused the generosity of a country that gave him a new start, and it was absolutely appalling,” Mr Morrison told local news outlet Channel Seven.
“And just because you’re on a permanent protection visa, it’s a warning to anyone. Once he’s been released from jail, he’ll go immediately into detention and we’ll deport him from there,” Morrison explained.
“If you come here on a visa and you violate our laws, we will boot you out.”
Mr Morrison previously noted laws he was responsible for as immigration minister, under then prime minister Tony Abbott, made it mandatory for non-Australian citizens to have their visas cancelled if they were convicted of a crime carrying a punishment of more than a year in jail.
The prime minister said some 4,000 convicted criminals had been kicked out of Australia under the tough legislation.
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