Thread: Former biker gang president and convicted torturer deported back to N.Z.

Former biker gang president and convicted torturer deported back to NZ

Published: 12:36PM Sunday June 21, 2015 Source: NZN

• Source: Breakfast

New Zealand Police will be at Auckland Airport to meet a former Australian biker gang president who is being deported following raids across Tasmania.

The 48-year-old, named by media outlets as Aaron Joe "AJ" Thomas Graham, of the Hobart suburb of Mornington, was flown to NSW after his arrest and has been stripped of his Australian visa.

Australian authorities says they don't want Graham in the country.
He was one of 14 people arrested in Tasmania's biggest crackdown on outlaw motorcycle gangs. Graham had links to a gang based south of Hobart and was wanted by immigration officials.

"The man is a fully patched member and former president of the Kingston chapter of the Rebels outlaw motorcycle gang," police Assistant Commissioner Mark Mewis said.

Immigration officials later confirmed the man has a significant criminal history including drug, firearms and assault offences.

He will remain in a correctional facility pending deportation from Australia.

Among the items seized during the Hobart raids were drugs including ice, 25 firearms including nine hand guns - some of which were loaded - and more than $200,000 cash.

According to Australian reports, Graham has a history of jail time for vicious assaults.

In 2009 he was jailed for a sustained torture attack on a teenage insurance fraud investigator. The torture was captured on Graham's own security cameras.

New Zealand police say they are aware Graham's Australian visa has been cancelled but don't yet know when he will be deported.

In a statement, a spokesman said police were informed when people were deported in such circumstances and background checks were done where relevant.

"We endeavour to meet them on their arrival in New Zealand and speak to them and where it's deemed necessary pass on information to police in the areas they will reside."

http://tvnz.co.nz/national-news/form...ack-nz-6342826

Kicked out of Aussie: violent Kiwi-born biker returning to New Zealand

PAUL EASTON AND CHRIS BARCLAY
Last updated 13:38, June 21 2015

ABC

An Australian Supreme Court judge likened NZ-born bike gang leader AJ Graham to an "assassin".


A violent Aussie biker once likened to an "assassin" following a vicious knife attack in which a man's achilles tendons were slashed could soon be heading to New Zealand.

Kiwi-born Aaron Joe Thomas Graham, known as AJ, was arrested by immigration officers in Hobart this week.

A former president of the Kingston chapter of the Rebels motorcycle gang, Graham has been stripped of his visa and is sitting in a New South Wales prison awaiting deportation to New Zealand, Australian media has reported.

Graham - a founding member of the Rebels in Tasmania - has a string of convictions for violent assaults.

In 1999 he was sentenced to five years in prison after he and an accomplice bashed another man with a shovel, cut his achilles tendons and stabbed his hands.

"The cutting of the achilles tendon of an unconscious man by two armed assailants is the act of an assassin," Supreme Court Judge Pierre Slicer said.

In 2009, Graham was jailed again after a terrifying attack on a teenage insurance investigator, inflicted in broad daylight.

The 19-year-old investigator was staking out a suspected insurance fraudster in Clarendon Vale, unaware that Graham, 42, lived nearby.

The young man was hiding behind bushes with a camouflage jacket, radio and other surveillance equipment.

Graham was told about the agent's presence and turned up with an associate to confront him.

The agent was taken to Graham's unit, where the young man was placed on a chair and beaten up.

Graham grabbed the agent's radio and hit him with it a number of times before poking him in the eye with the aerial.

The agent eventually managed to flee.

Graham's arrest came as part of a recent crackdown by Australian authorities.

Under law changes Australian Immigration and Border Protection Minister Peter Dutton now has the power to cancel the visas of suspected or convicted criminals.

And Graham is not the only criminal Kiwi being kicked back across the Tasman.

New Zealand-born Simon Hipa Horne, a criminal with a history of mental illness and substance abuse, is being deported, 14 years after officials first considered cancelling his visa.

The father-of-three's extensive list of convictions ensured he failed the character test associated with the legislation because he had served a sentence of 12 months or more.

Horne, who left for Australia as an eight-year-old in 1975, has reportedly spent a 15-month period back in New Zealand from November 1995.

While in Australia Horne has spent about 10 years in prison for a variety of offences, according to Dutton.

He was first warned he risked deportation in 2001 while incarcerated in rural New South Wales, but the then-Minister for Multicultural Affairs Philip Ruddock opted against it, although he warned Horne another conviction would prompt a review.

A nine-month sentence for breaking into a 92-year-old woman's house in Western Australia in March 2005 led to his visa being cancelled by the Minister of Immigration and Citizenship, Kevin Andrews, in September 2007.

However, Horne successfully appealed that decision in the Federal Court claiming he never received notification that his visa was under review, so was unable to make submissions.

Although the ministry made several attempts to contact Horne he only realised his visa had been cancelled in November 2007 while he was serving a sentence in a corrections facility in Sydney.

In relation to Graham, Dutton issued a release, confirming a New Zealand national with strong links to an outlaw motorcycle gang had been detained.

"The man has a significant criminal history, including drug, firearms and assault offences. He has been taken into immigration detention and will remain in a correctional facility pending any removal from Australia.

"I have no tolerance for foreign nationals who are involved in serious criminal activity or are associated with criminal gangs."

A New Zealand police spokesman said it was aware Graham's visa had been cancelled, but they had not been advised of a removal date.

"We are informed when people who are removed from Australia in these circumstances are arriving in New Zealand and we obtain information relating to their background where relevant. We endeavour to meet them on their arrival in New Zealand and speak to them and where it's deemed necessary pass on information to police in the areas they will reside."

http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/crim...to-new-zealand