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Citing ‘classified information’, Dutton stands by disputed Manus Island claim

Immigration Minister Peter Dutton has refused to back down after he was contradicted by PNG police.

Immigration Minister Peter Dutton has refused to back down after he was contradicted by PNG police. Photo: AAP

As Immigration Minister Peter Dutton demands the media apologise for its coverage of shots fired on Manus Island, questions are still being raised about his account of an incident that left asylum seekers and detention centre staff fearing for their lives.

Manus MP Ronny Knight, who Mr Dutton on Monday labelled “discredited” due to the fact he’d been dismissed from the Parliament, has hit back at the Immigration Minister, suggesting he “doesn’t know what he is talking about”.

After the Supreme Court on Wednesday ruled he could contest Papua New Guinea’s upcoming elections despite corruption allegations, Mr Knight said the family of the local boy at the centre of Mr Dutton’s claims may speak with local media as soon as Thursday.

“We are getting in touch with them and getting them to give the actual version of the story and the facts so we can ascertain who is the donkey and who is the horse in this whole shemozzle,” he told The New Daily.

Mr Dutton had suggested that the shooting at the Manus Island detention centre on Good Friday had been caused in part by an incident in which asylum seekers led a local boy into the facility.

Asylum seekers staring at media on the Manus Island detention centre in 2014. The centre is now open. Photo: AAP

Asylum seekers staring at media on the Manus Island detention centre in 2014. The centre is now open. Photo: AAP

Despite the claim being disputed by local police, detainees and Mr Knight, Mr Dutton has refused to back down, saying he has classified information from the Commissioner of Australian Border Force.

“The incident to which I refer has been very clearly briefed to me,” he told Sky News on Tuesday, adding that his “position hasn’t changed”.

Mr Dutton has also claimed he is owed an apology from the media after it emerged Mr Knight, who had rubbished the minister’s claim in an ABC interview, had been dismissed from Parliament over corruption allegations.

Mr Knight conceded he would have to face those allegations in court at a later date, but said he was confident he would be vindicated.

The Manus politician, who says he has not been “convicted of fraud” as Mr Dutton claimed on Monday, labelled the minister “irresponsible”.

“We’re on the ground, we know what’s happening here,” Mr Knight told The New Daily.

“How does he have such information? Is he the Minister for Papua New Guinea or an Australian Minister.”

What happened?

About 6.30pm on Good Friday, April 14, “drunken” members of the PNG defence force converged on the island’s regional processing centre and fired shots into the facility.

Local police, the local MP and asylum seekers have blamed a soccer match earlier that day between navy officers and detainees that turned nasty.

The incident involving the boy – who was 10, not five as Mr Dutton said – had occurred more than a week before the shooting and was not a factor, according to the local Police Commander David Yapu.

The boy had gone to the centre to ask for food, was given fruit by some asylum seekers and then sent away, Mr Yapu said.

“Peter Dutton is elevating the mood now by saying things that are false,” Kurdish Iranian asylum seeker Benham Satah, a Manus Island detainee, told The New Daily. “If locals knew how these people had helped the child [by giving him fruit], they would come show their appreciation, they wouldn’t go and shoot at them.”

Another asylum seeker and Manus Island detainee, Kurdish journalist Behrouz Boochani, told The New Daily the minister’s comments were “causing tension” and “dangerous”.

Greens immigration spokesman Nick McKim, who will visit Manus Island next week, said the whole affair had “disturbing echoes” of the Howard-era ‘Children Overboard’ scandal.

“Mr Dutton’s response in recent days has just consolidated my view that he is lying about what happened,” he told The New Daily.

“And doing so in order to demonise detainees on Manus Island and turn public sentiments against them.”

The Immigration Minister’s office was contacted for comment.

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