Wellington - An asylum seeker from Iran, Thomas Yadegary,
who was jailed 29 months ago after refusing to sign an application
for a passport needed so that he could be deported to his homeland,
was released on Thursday.
The Auckland High Court released him on strict bail conditions
including a nighttime curfew following a judicial review of his case
in December.
Yadegary, who arrived in New Zealand in 1993, resisted moves to
deport him after his visitor's visa ran out, claiming that he would
be persecuted in Iran because he had converted from Islam to be a
Roman Catholic.
A chef who cooked for former US President Bill Clinton when he
visited New Zealand, Yadegary worked in Auckland hotels until he was
arrested in November 2004 after his final appeal to stay was turned
down.
Amnesty International took up his case and agreed it was unsafe
for him to return to Iran.
Details of the court hearing that freed him were suppressed
pending a government appeal.
Green Party Member of Parliament Keith Locke said, 'The decision
today brings into focus the appalling government policies which kept
an innocent man behind bars here for so long.
'New Zealand is not a CIA rendering facility, a gulag in Stalinist
Russia or Guantanamo Bay,' he said. 'This is New Zealand where we are
supposed to give people a fair go.'
© 2007 dpa - Deutsche Presse-Agentur 
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