Location Of SIEVX Sinking Was Known

DIMIA has released documents today to the Senate Committee that show that the Minister for Immigration Philip Ruddock was informed that SIEVX sank 'approximately 60nm south of the Sunda Strait'. This information was included in Intelligence Note 83/2001 dated 23 October 2001 at 1400 hours, just a few hours after Australians first heard about the sinking.

This is the first official confirmation that SIEVX sank well inside the Australian Operation Relex air surveillance zone and 50nm beyond the Indonesian territorial seas. It also corroborates the Jakarta Harbour Master's rescue co-ordinates received by Dateline.

This is now a major credibility issue for all in government who have claimed for the past 11 months that we cannot know where SIEVX sank.

So how could Ruddock say in June 2002 on Meet the Press that SIEVX sank "quite possibly within [Indonesia's] contiguous zone and also quite possibly within the 12 mile limits" when he had been told 8 months earlier that it sank 60 NM south of Java?

Other SIEVX Related News