HE is a former skydiving money-launderer who receives the disability support pension and is now fighting to become an Australian citizen.
Father-of-three Wassim Assafiri, 35, has been rejected for citizenship a third time because of his criminal history, which includes using a fake citizenship certificate to set up a false identity.
He was on Centrelink benefits when arrested in 2005 after a bank officer noticed the driver’s licence he was using to send $200,000 to Lebanon was false.
In the Administrative Appeals Tribunal, senior member Jill Toohey said she was “not satisfied that sufficient time has passed to be satisfied he is of good character for the purposes of the Citizenship Act”.
But she said Assafiri, of Bass Hill, could try again.
It emerged during the application that Assafiri arrived in Australia from Lebanon in July 2002, with wife Ghazwa Baltaji, a Lebanese-born Australian citizen.
He was granted residency in March 2005.
In 2006 he was jailed for three years and nine months — reduced on appeal to one year and five months — after pleading guilty to three counts of money laundering, possessing money believed to be the proceeds of crime and making 19 false statements.
The District Court said he had used a false citizenship certificate to obtain a fake driver’s licence, set up a company and open bank accounts in false names to send $465,942 to banks in Lebanon and Indonesia before he was stopped when trying to send the $200,000.
Ms Toohey said “at some point” after being released from jail in February 2008, he was assessed by Centrelink as eligible for a disability support pension on the grounds of depression, anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder symptoms “although he did not meet the diagnostic criteria for this condition”.
She said Assafiri had tried to work as a truck driver “but found it stressful and did not feel he could do the work”.
He is still on a disability support pension — which begins at $577.40 a fortnight — while working part-time as a driver with a kitchen company and doing voluntary work at a mosque. His wife, sister and prominent members of the Lebanese community all spoke well of him.
Assafiri’s Facebook page show him skydiving, riding in a speedboat, in a helicopter and at Movie World with his children. Yesterday he said the skydiving photos were taken before he went to jail in 2006 but only uploaded after his release: “I did that before I went to jail.’’
Human Services Minister Marise Payne has asked her department to urgently investigate the case.
SOURCE
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