http://smh.com.au/articles/2002/08/26/1030053035292.html Holiday at the Razorwire Hilton - at $130 a day By Cynthia Banham August 27 2002 Six months of sleepless nights in a tiny dormitory with four men. A worn mattress with small blankets. Guards shining a torch in his face every half-hour. Shahid Qureshi thought he had seen it all when he emerged from Melbourne's Maribyrnong detention centre last September. But the 27-year-old Pakistani's biggest surprise was when the Federal Government presented him with an accommodation bill for $26,460. For this amount - about $130 a night - he had also endured undercooked meals, a ban on sex, two-hour queues for a shower, broken toilets, and one towel for the entire detention period. Just $30 more a night secures a room at the Novotel, Darling Harbour, while a little over $100 more pays for an executive suite at the Hilton. Mr Qureshi, who is on a bridging visa and has been prohibited from working while he awaits an appeal against rejection of his application for refugee status, has no means of paying off the debt. http://smh.com.au/articles/2002/08/26/1030053035443.html New overboard claim: 'Navy told us to jump in' By Anne Calverley and AAP August 27 2002 Asylum seekers on the boat at the centre of the children overboard affair were handed life jackets by the navy and told to jump into the sea as their vessel sank, a trial of three alleged people smugglers has been told. Iraqi national Abdul Amir Al Moudhaffir told the trial in the Perth District Court that he and other asylum seekers were plucked from the sea a short time later by the warship HMAS Adelaide. The asylum seekers on the boat became notorious after the Federal Government accused them of throwing their children overboard. The claims were later found to be false, and the incident has been the subject of a Senate inquiry.