Italy defends immigrants stance

Italy yesterday defended its fast-track deportation of immigrants to Libya, saying the country had to take action because it faced the threat of crime and international terrorism.

But human rights groups condemned the centre-right government of Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi for airlifting more than 1,000 immigrants to Libya without allowing time for any of them to make a claim for asylum.

Officials of the UN refugee body also criticised Rome for deporting the group on the basis of their nationality and for not letting individuals question their expulsion.

Interior Minister Giuseppe Pisanu told parliament Italy had to get tough with human traffickers who, he said, charge poor, desperate people €1,500 for a perilous sea crossing from Africa.

"It was absolutely necessary to block an organised assault on our coasts," Mr Pisanu said.

He said many illegal immigrants end up working in crime and Italy had to be conscious of the security risk from people coming from regions where al Qaeda was gaining support.

Within eight days at the start of October, 1,787 immigrants had landed on Italy's southernmost island of Lampedusa, he said.

In Geneva, the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) said Italy delayed granting it access to a camp holding the migrants after most of them had been shipped to Libya.

"Finally we got access (to the migrants) but to be a bit cynical, the meal was over," UNHCR chief Ruud Lubbers said yesterday.

Mr Pisanu said Italy could not allow the UNHCR access to the Lampedusa migrant centre where it held 1,200 people on security grounds. The centre is meant to hold no more than 186 people.

"The UNHCR is worried that some people in need of international protection might, instead, have been forcibly repatriated to their country of origin without having access to the proper asylum procedure," the body said in a statement.

A UNHCR official, allowed to visit on Thursday, criticised Italy for deciding who to deport on the basis of nationality.

Mr Pisanu, who said most of the migrants were Egyptian, and a few Bangladeshis and Moroccans, denied there had been "mass expulsions" and insisted each case had been considered individually.

Libya also declined a UNHCR request to visit the migrants there. Tripoli has already deported most of them to Egypt.

Mr Pisanu said rights groups had painted an unfairly negative picture of the way Italy handled the immigrants and said just a few had had their hands bound because they were felt to pose a security risk during the flight to Libya.