Deportee Wary Of Meeting Minister
Sydney Morning Herald
Wednesday February 7, 2007
ROBERT JOVICIC has had more than one drink in the last-chance saloon, but that doesn't make the latest battle over his citizenship any easier to face.
The stateless 42-year-old, who was deported to Serbia in 2004, then brought back to Sydney last year after being found living destitute on the streets of Belgrade, is once again in a stand-off with the Government.Mr Jovicic yesterday refused a request to attend a meeting with the chief of staff of the new Immigration Minister, Kevin Andrews, without a lawyer or adviser present.Mr Jovicic had sought a meeting with the minister, "basically for him just to see that I am a human being and I am just like anybody else", but does not want to face a meeting with government officials alone. He has been given two weeks to apply for Serbian citizenship as an act of "good faith", or be taken to Villawood detention centre.He applied for Serbian citizenship in 2004, at the request of the Australian Government, and it was briefly granted before being revoked. He could be accepted as Serbian through the nationality of his father, Stamenko Jovicic, even though Robert Jovicic was born in France and lived for nearly 40 years in Australia.The Government has said he can stay in Australia even if he is accepted as Serbian, but Mr Jovicic pleaded again yesterday for Australian residency. "I have no affiliation with Serbia." It brought back memories of "being interrogated by people with AK-47s and that's somewhere I don't want to go back to". Mr Jovicic, who lives on the northern beaches, is employed in a business installing garage doors. He said his employer knew of his past but said he had a job for as long as he wanted. Another man facing deportation, Harald Kertz, is being held in Villawood. Mr Kertz, 48, was woken by an immigration raid on his parents' Westmead home at 8am last Tuesday. He had arrived in Australia from Germany as an 11-year-old and has not been back since. His parents and his two adult children are naturalised Australians. But Mr Kertz, not realising he could be deported, never became a citizen. He developed a heroin habit after a year in hospital following a severe work accident and slipped into a life of crime. In 1996 he was convicted of various offences, including stealing and indecent assault. He has served his sentence and stopped using drugs.The immigration raid opened old wounds for Mr Kertz's father, Franz. "I know Germany. I was there when Hitler was still there and that's how it felt like here on Tuesday morning," a distraught Franz Kertz told ABC radio yesterday.
© 2007 Sydney Morning Herald