Fed: No decision yet on burns man s visa application Ruddock

AAP General News (Australia)
04-03-2001
Fed: No decision yet on burns man s visa application Ruddock

Immigration Minister PHILIP RUDDOCK says there has been no decision made on a fresh
application for family visas in the case of a Pakistani man who set himself alight yesterday.

The man, identified as 48-year-old SHUHARYAR KIYANI, who has been in Australia since
1996, shocked visitors to Parliament House in Canberra yesterday, when he poured accelerant
over himself and set himself alight.

After security staff put out the flames, he was taken to Canberra Hospital but then
airlifted to the burns unit of Sydney's Concord Hospital where he was in intensive care
overnight.

He suffered third degree burns to 60 per cent of his body in a protest at the delays
over his application to bring his wife and child to Australia.

Sydney's Daily Telegraph newspaper reports this morning that a fresh visa application
had in fact been approved by the Immigration Department and that he hadn't been told.

However, a spokesman for Mr RUDDOCK this morning denied this claim.

The spokesman says the second application hasn't yet been decided.

AAP RTV dep/alt/

KEYWORD: BURN (CANBERRA)

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