The UN Committee against Torture found Wednesday that Australia violated the Convention against Torture by exposing an Iranian asylum seeker to torture and cruel treatment through offshore transfer and prolonged immigration detention.

The decision concerns an asylum seeker known as Mr A, who fled Iran in 2013, fearing persecution, and arrived in Australia by boat later that year. Instead of processing his protection claim domestically, Australian authorities transferred him to the Manus Island Regional Processing Centre in Papua New Guinea under the country’s offshore processing policy.

The committee found that Mr A spent approximately three years on Manus Island in unsafe and degrading conditions and was subjected to serious violence while detained. In 2019, Australia transferred him back to the mainland for medical treatment, but kept him in immigration detention for almost another three years despite documented physical and psychological harm. He was released on a bridging visa in 2022.

The committee held Australia responsible for the harm suffered offshore, rejecting the government’s argument that Papua New Guinea controlled the Manus facility. It found that Australia exercised effective control because it funded the centre, contracted private operators, and made the policy decision to transfer asylum seekers there. The committee stated that relocating detention outside national borders does not relieve a state of its obligations under the convention when it retains control over detention conditions.

The ruling aligns with earlier UN findings on Australia’s offshore detention system, including decisions relating to its Nauru processing centre.

The committee also examined Mr A’s detention history in Australia. After arriving in 2013, he spent 18 months in immigration detention before receiving a bridging visa. He then lived in the community for six years. In 2017, authorities detained him again after his visa expired and charged him with four offences. He was acquitted of three charges, and the fourth did not result in a conviction. He has no criminal record.

Despite this, Australian law required his continued detention as a non-citizen without a valid visa. The committee found that this detention was mandatory, administrative, and prolonged, and not based on an individualized assessment. It concluded that Australia failed to show the detention was reasonable, necessary, or proportionate, particularly given Mr A’s prior offshore detention and medical vulnerability.

The committee found Australia in breach of articles 2(1) and 16 of the Convention against Torture, which require states to prevent torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment. It reiterated long-standing concerns that Australia’s offshore processing policy exposes asylum seekers to prolonged detention, uncertainty, and serious harm.

The committee called on Australia to provide Mr A with full redress, including compensation and rehabilitation, to allow his protection claim to be adequately assessed, and to adopt measures to prevent similar violations in the future.