The asylum seeker who gave evidence in the trial of Reza Barati’s alleged killers says he has been told he will be murdered unless he withdraws his testimony.

Benham Satah was twice forcibly taken to Lorengau court last month to testify in the trial of Joshua Kaluvia and Louie Efi, who are alleged to have led a gang of guards who beat Barati to death.

Benham Sateh, an alleged witness to the murder of Reza Barati, is forcibly taken to court from the detention centre on Manus Island. Link to video

Satah initially refused to testify, citing threats that he would be killed. On the second day, he agreed to give evidence after being promised by the judge and Manus Island detention centre operators he would be given additional protection.

However, since being returned to detention he says his life has been under constant threat, in person and by phone.

“I cannot sleep at night, I have nightmares every night,” he told Guardian Australia. “My legs they shake, I cannot leave my room. I think I am going crazy.

“The judge promised ‘I will guarantee your safety’. But since then, nothing. They can get to me. They can kill me.”

After being returned from court, Satah was returned to the SAA compound within the Manus Island detention centre, used for housing people suffering mental health issues, and where he was quarantined from local guards.

But after two weeks, Satah says, eight local guards came into the compound, “including one man who was involved in killing Reza Barati”.

“It was not an accident, they came to intimidate me, to show they can get to me wherever I am.”

Satah has since been returned to Foxtrot compound at his request, and says that local guards sit a the back of his accommodation block throughout the day.

“They never used to do that. I can never leave my room. I only leave to go to eat, and I always have to go with other people around me. I am not safe.

“I have seen what they can do. I saw them beat my friend to death. They can kill people. And they will kill me.”

Satah receives regular threats by phone. Guardian Australia has seen some of the text messages sent to his phone, and to the phones of friends also in detention.

One reads: “If you don’t withdraw your affidavits against us in trial. We kill all of you. Don’t forget you live in Manus.”

Guardian Australia has approached detention centre operators Transfield and security subcontractor Wilson Security for comment on Satah’s security regime.

According to a formal statement to the office of the United Nations high commissioner for human rights in July 2014, Sateh has previously been targeted by guards because he was a witness to Barati’s death. The statement says that Satah and another witness were forcibly taken to Chauka – the detention centre’s secretive “behavioural management” compound made of windowless shipping containers – where they were tied to chairs and “threatened with physical violence, rape, and criminal prosecution for ‘becoming aggressive’ if they refused to retract the statements that they had made” about Barati’s death.

Upon investigation, the UN’s special rapporteur on torture, Juan Méndez, found in March this year there “was substance in the allegations”. However no action has been taken against guards or detention centre operators.

On Manus Island, the trial of Kaluvia and Efi has been controversial from the outset.

The pair is accused of leading a riotous gang of guards, police and others who invaded the detention centre – under provocation – and attacked asylum seekers in February last year.



More than 60 asylum seekers were injured. One man was shot by police, another lost an eye when he was beaten, and Barati was killed.

At the trial last month, PNG’s supreme court heard Kaluvia chased Barati up a staircase, hitting him twice with a large piece of wood studded with nails.

Up to 15 guards then kicked Barati in the head before Efi allegedly dropped a rock on his head.

But only the two PNG nationals have been brought to justice, despite all of the evidence from PNG police and from an Australian government investigation into the incident reporting a much wider involvement.

Two expatriate guards, one Australian and one New Zealander, who have been named in briefs of evidence as kicking Barati in the head while he lay prone and bleeding, have not faced questioning or charge.

Kaluvia and Efi have both staunchly maintained their innocence. They told Guardian Australia from Lorengau prison: “They want to convict us so that nobody else, no Australians or New Zealanders who are responsible, have to face justice. We have to take the blame for them because we are PNG.”

Local leaders believe the two PNG nationals have been cast as scapegoats for the crimes of many more.



Ronnie Knight, MP for Manus Island, said there was “one law for the locals, and no laws for the expats. The locals don’t matter, and the expats get off, they can do what they like”.

The provincial governor, Charlie Benjamin, said all should be equal before the law, and the incident should be fully and fairly investigated.

“It should not just be the two locals who are held responsible. This violence, it was not just these two. These two were not the only people responsible.”

The trial will be reopened in November to hear more evidence in defence of Kaluvia and Efi.