Reza Berati ID'd as Asylum Seeker Dead After Manus Island Riot; From Iran

Reza Berati ID'd as Asylum Seeker Dead After Manus Island Riot; From Iran
Zachary Stieber
2/21/2014
Updated:
7/18/2015

Reza Berati has been identified as the asylum seeker left dead after the Manus Island riot.

Berati’s remains will be sent back to his native Iran, officials said Friday. 

“The family has expressed their wish to have the body returned to Iran for burial arrangements,” Immigration Minister Scott Morrison told reporters in Canberra, reported the Sydney Morning Herald.

“The Australian government will fulfill that request and will make the necessary arrangements in co-ordination with the government of Papua New Guinea.”

Berati was at a detention center on the island that was built in 2001 after arriving in the country in mid-2013 on a boat.

Australia holds asylum seekers on the island, which is part of Papua New Guinea.

67 seekers were injured during the recent riots there, while Berati, 23, was killed.

Morrison has pledged an investigation will reveal what really happened during the riots.

However, he told ABC that the probe will take at least a few months.

“I do take responsibility for things that happen within my portfolio under my management, of course I do,” he said.

“Since we came into office, I have been taking steps every day to try and upgrade and get the offshore processing facilities in a far better shape.”

He said that the controversial resettling policies are being tested and will continue to be tested.

“There will naturally, and by definition, be a tension in these centers because people don’t want to be there in the first place,” he said.

Morrison said that he was not aware of the status of Berati’s application for asylum.