The plight of Hakeem al-Araibi captured the nation's attention last summer.

The footballer had travelled from Australia to Thailand for his long-awaited honeymoon when he was arrested at Bangkok Airport.

Hakeem had been granted a refugee protection visa by Australia after he was tortured in his home country of Bahrain. What he did not know as he left Melbourne was that Bahrain had issued an INTERPOL Red Notice for his arrest.

As a refugee, Hakeem should never have been on the Red Notice list and should not have been arrested in Bangkok.

Instead, bureaucratic bungles inside the Department of Home Affairs meant the Red Notice was not cancelled before he left Melbourne, leading Hakeem to be locked up in Thailand for 77 days and facing extradition to the country that tortured him.

Nearly nine months after the ABC first requested correspondence between the Department of Home Affairs and the Australian Federal Police (AFP) under Freedom of Information (FOI) about this bureaucratic debacle, some of those emails have finally been released.

They paint a picture of dysfunction and a breakdown in communications within the department and the agencies that were meant to help protect him, not put him at risk.

Contact Steve Cannane

These emails include key details that were not revealed when the most senior officials from the AFP and the Department of Home Affairs gave their versions of events in Senate Estimates in February, including the extraordinary revelation that the department began the process of looking at whether Hakeem's refugee protection visa should be cancelled while he was detained in Thailand.

Hakeem continued to fight an extradition order, which would have had him returned to Bahrain, up until his release on February 12. ( Reuters: Jorge Silva )

November 8 – Bahrain issues a Red Notice

In early November last year, plans for Hakeem and his wife Nani's* trip to Thailand were in place.

At the time of their wedding in February 2017, the pair could not travel overseas together as Hakeem was still waiting for a refugee protection visa. Finally, they were about to head off to Thailand, a country Hakeem had first visited in 2013 with Bahrain's national football team.

"My wife was excited to go there, because she had never been to Thailand," he said.

"We just wanted to have fun there."

Their flights were booked, and the footballer believed he was safe to travel. He says he called the Immigration helpline two to three times in the months leading up to his trip to make sure it was safe to visit Thailand with his wife.

Hakeem plays football for Pascoe Vale in Melbourne. ( AAP: David Crosling )

"I asked them about travelling overseas — whether it would be safe for me because I have a problem in Bahrain. They said: 'Yes, you are allowed to travel everywhere, except Bahrain'," Hakeem said.

What he did not know was that INTERPOL Bahrain had issued a Red Notice in his name on November 8.

Hakeem was accused by Bahraini authorities of being responsible for attacks on a police station in 2012, following the Arab Spring pro-democracy protests. He says there is video evidence he was instead playing a game of football against Busaiteen Club at the time, that was shown live on Bahrain television.

A Red Notice operates a bit like a wanted poster. A country can ask INTERPOL to put out an alert to law enforcement officials across the world to help identify and track individuals who may be wanted for extradition.

It is not uncommon for authoritarian states like Bahrain to abuse INTERPOL's Red Notice system.

Russia, China, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates are among the countries accused of abusing the system to try and extradite individuals for political purposes.

A Red Notice is not treated as an international arrest warrant in Australia, but in other countries like Thailand it can lead to arrest and extradition.

November 9 – INTERPOL in Canberra alerts Home Affairs

The day after Bahrain issued the Red Notice in Hakeem's name, the AFP alerted Border Force inside the Department of Home Affairs.

November 22 – A critical error

Thirteen days later, Border Force loaded the Red Notice onto the Central Movement Alert List, without notifying the AFP/INTERPOL office in Canberra that Hakeem had been granted a refugee visa.

If proper procedure had been followed, the AFP/INTERPOL Canberra office would have been told he was on a refugee protection visa and then alerted INTERPOL in France that the Red Notice should be cancelled.

Without access to this key information, INTERPOL Canberra was about to put the footballer at risk.

November 27 – The nightmare begins

On a cloudy spring morning, Hakeem al-Araibi woke in his home in Melbourne's northern suburbs full of excitement and anticipation about his honeymoon.

Hakeem caught an Uber to the airport with his wife, not knowing it was no longer safe for him to travel.

Hakeem had been granted a protection visa in November 2017. ( Supplied )

As they passed through customs, Hakeem's name popped up on the alert list as being subject to an INTERPOL Red Notice. Border Force contacted the AFP/INTERPOL office in Canberra and let them know that Hakeem was leaving the country, but the footballer remained ignorant of the risk he was taking by travelling.

Around the time the couple were boarding Jetstar flight JQ29 to Bangkok, INTERPOL's Canberra office alerted their colleagues in Thailand and Bahrain that Hakeem was about to travel.

The ABC has obtained this email through FOI and it shows for the first time how Bahrain was tipped off about Hakeem's travel.

The first line of the correspondence reads:

INTERPOL Canberra takes this opportunity to extend its compliments to INTERPOL Bangkok and INTERPOL Bahrain.

After the small talk was over, INTERPOL Canberra disclosed that Hakeem was heading to Bangkok with his wife and attached the Red Notice.

This email shows the AFP/INTERPOL Canberra office sent an alert about Hakeem al-Araibi's trip to INTERPOL in Bahrain and Bangkok. ( Supplied: Australian Federal Police )

When Hakeem was shown this email by the ABC, he looked stunned.

Hakeem was only aware that the AFP's officers at INTERPOL Canberra had informed Thailand of his travel.

"Now I know they told Bahrain I had a Red Notice," he said.

"I don't know what this means. They don't like refugees? Or don't like me? I don't know why they do this."

Hakeem al-Araibi had already been detained in Thailand for two weeks when he appeared in a Bangkok court. ( AP: Gemunu Amarasinghe )

Hakeem said they should have told him he was the subject of a Red Notice rather than telling an authoritarian regime like Bahrain that he was travelling.

"They should respect the refugee, respect the people who need protection … if they told me, nothing would have happened," he said.

The AFP says it is standard procedure that the country that has instigated a Red Notice is contacted if the subject is travelling. That policy has not changed since Hakeem's ordeal, even when it relates to countries who abuse the Red Notice system and have appalling human rights records.

Radha Stirling, an international lawyer who is campaigning for reform of Red Notices, says the AFP should change its policy.

"While this may be a standard process for AFP, this is not a process imposed upon them by their membership to INTERPOL, and what countries decide to do with the data they hold is at their discretion," Ms Stirling told the ABC.

"Australia, in fact, should have warned Hakeem of the existence of the Red Notice and advised him against travel. Even more than that, protocols need to be urgently established to ensure no residents are ever put in this position again."

Hakeem made another appearance in a Bangkok court on February 4, having been detained for more than two months. ( AP Photo: Sakchai Lalit )

Hakeem and his wife had no idea that Bahrain had been alerted by Australia that he was travelling and what was awaiting them at Bangkok airport. Nani spent most of the flight asleep while Hakeem watched Hollywood action movies.

Hakeem says when they arrived, Thai authorities stormed the plane and arrested him. He says around 20 officials had been waiting for him.

"I can't describe how I was feeling. I was scared. I told them I am not Bahraini now. I am Australian. I have Australian travel documents. You're not allowed to stop me because I have a protection visa," he said.

Hakeem was separated from his wife and placed in a detention centre at the airport. His day had started with the excitement of flying to Thailand for his honeymoon. It ended in an airport detention centre, isolated from his wife and fearing he would be extradited to Bahrain, imprisoned, tortured and possibly even worse.

"I thought they could kill me," he said.

"In 2012, when I was 18, they tortured me. They told me I would never play football again. I am a Shia Muslim and they hate Shia Muslims in Bahrain."

November 28 – A critical email is missed

Hakeem hardly slept on his first night at the airport detention centre.

"I was crying inside. I was thinking about my wife because my wife was in jail, not just me," he said.

When the time zones aligned, he reached out for help.

"I had my phone with me. I tried to call Immigration, the Australian embassy, Human Rights. Everyone," he said.

He says the embassy told him it was working on his case and would provide him with updates.

Back in Australia, the country that recognised Hakeem was a refugee at risk of persecution, and someone needed protection from Bahrain, seemed to be doing little to help prevent him from being extradited there.

Internal departmental emails obtained by the ABC under FOI show mistakes being made, correspondence going unanswered and even the triggering of an inquiry into whether Hakeem's protection visa should be cancelled.

At 9:06am a team leader from INTERPOL Fugitive Investigations in Australia emailed the Department of Home Affairs suggesting Hakeem left for Thailand on a Bahrain passport and that the Bahrainis had told them it was a fraudulent passport.

An email sent by a staffer in INTERPOL Fugitive Investigations in Canberra that reveals Bahrain falsely claimed Hakeem was travelling on a fraudulent passport. ( Supplied: Department of Home Affairs )

This was not true. Hakeem was travelling on a Titre de Voyage, a travel document issued to a non-Australian citizen granted refugee status.

Within the hour, Home Affairs responded via email, alerting INTERPOL Canberra that Hakeem was on a protection visa and had a legitimate travel document. This was a key moment. It was the first time the department told the AFP and the local branch of INTERPOL that Hakeem was a refugee.

This should have triggered a process that saw that information passed on to INTERPOL in France so the Red Notice could be cancelled, but this key email went unread for five days.

This email, sent in response to an enquiry about Hakeem to Home Affairs, was the first instance of AFP/INTERPOL being informed of his refugee status. ( Supplied: Department of Home Affairs )

Later, in Senate Estimates, AFP Deputy Commissioner Ramzi Jabbour said that "after sending the original email to Home Affairs, the individual AFP NCB (INTERPOL Canberra) member ceased duty…"

Given that the unnamed agent received the critical email at 10:01am, less than an hour after he or she sent the original email to Home Affairs asking for confirmation of Hakeem's passport details, it seems unusual that they had left work by 10 in the morning and missed this critical email.

Former Socceroo Craig Foster (left) led a campaign to free Hakeem al-Araibi. ( ABC News: Elena de Bruijne )

A spokesperson for the AFP told the ABC: "The member concerned worked for a short period on the morning of 28 November 2018, following which they were on leave until 3 December 2018."

At 11:20am the Home Affairs Character and Cancellation Branch wrote to Australia's INTERPOL branch in Canberra. According to an AFP/INTERPOL chronology obtained by the ABC under FOI, this official sought to "disclose the Red Notice for the purposes of visa cancellation".

Craig Foster, the former Socceroos captain who became the most prominent advocate to get Hakeem returned to Australia, is staggered by this revelation.

"It's become clear that there was even talk of cancelling Hakeem's visa in the early stages," Foster said.

"It's really concerning, because it meant that he was placed at even greater risk than he should have been and it's not acceptable."

A spokesperson for Home Affairs told the ABC any case could be referred to the Character and Cancellation Branch if there was an INTERPOL Red Notice issued and its officers were "required to assess all circumstances … and were able to quickly determine that the Red Notice did not enliven the cancellation provisions".

The Australian national director of Amnesty International, Claire Mallinson, said Home Affairs needed a "comprehensive independent review" of their processes.

"The punitive nature of Australia's approach to immigration was demonstrated with its first move being to consider revoking Hakeem's visa," Ms Mallinson said.

"The systems currently in place mean that this terrible situation could happen again at any time."

November 29 – 'They want to kill me in Bahrain'

By this point, Hakeem and his wife had spent two nights of their planned honeymoon in detention. After paying off local officials, they were allowed to share a family room in the airport detention centre.

The footballer continued to call the Australian embassy and friends as he desperately tried to avoid being deported to Bahrain.

One of his calls was to SBS reporter Ben Terry.

"I'm a refugee in Australia now. I just want to go back to Australia. I don't want to stay here … they want to kill me in Bahrain," Hakeem told him.

Sorry, this video has expired Hakeem al-Araibi pleads for Australian officials to stop his extradition back to Bahrain.

At 1:44pm SBS Online published the first news article about Hakeem's ordeal stating that he was arrested in Bangkok and facing deportation back to Bahrain. The story said he was on a permanent protection visa and included comments from the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFAT).

The email from Home Affairs to INTERPOL Canberra alerting them to Hakeem's refugee status was still sitting unread in the inbox of a staffer on leave and the initial media reports did not seem to trigger them to start the process of having the Red Notice cancelled.

The FOI documents obtained by the ABC reveal that at 6:42pm that day, the AFP finally found out that Hakeem did have refugee status in Australia and that as a result, the Red Notice should never have been issued. Remarkably this was only discovered when an AFP representative in Bangkok was told by Home Affairs. This suggests the AFP in Thailand knew this critical piece of information before the AFP in Australia did.

This detail has not been reported until now and was not mentioned when then-AFP Commissioner Andrew Colvin gave evidence before Senate Estimates in February.

November 30 – INTERPOL France asks Australia about Hakeem's refugee status

As Hakeem and his wife tried to get to sleep inside the detention centre, INTERPOL's Office of Legal Affairs (OLA) in Lyon swung into action, emailing the INTERPOL office in Canberra at 2:56am.

According to the AFP/INTERPOL chronology, the OLA said it had learned through media reports that Hakeem "may be an asylum seeker or granted refugee status in Australia".

The INTERPOL OLA asked for confirmation of this and pointed out that it was "required under its Rules and procedures to consider whether a subject is an asylum seeker or refugee before issuing a Notice. At the time of consideration they had no knowledge of subject's status".

If INTERPOL's own chronology is correct, the first contact between INTERPOL Canberra and INTERPOL OLA was instigated by France not Australia, and it was triggered by a media report.

At 8:11am INTERPOL Canberra emailed Home Affairs asking for Hakeem's visa status.

At 1:42pm a director from the Protection Assessment Support Section inside Home Affairs responded, confirming that Hakeem had a permanent protection visa.

At 3:03pm after receiving advice from Home Affairs, INTERPOL contacted the OLA in France to tell them Hakeem was a refugee on a protection visa. Armed with this information, INTERPOL cancelled the Red Notice within 24 hours.

AFP Deputy Commissioner Ramzi Jabbour believes these delays did not "change the course of events" for Hakeem.

Once the Red Notice was rescinded, he remained in Thailand for over 70 days. By now a judicial process was underway into his potential extradition to Bahrain.

In the end, lobbying from human rights groups, the Australian Government and individuals like Foster put enough pressure on the Thai Government for them to terminate proceedings and allow Hakeem to return to Melbourne on February 12.

Got a confidential news tip? Email ABC Investigations at investigations@abc.net.au For more sensitive information: Text message using the Signal phone app +61 436 369 072 No system is 100 per cent secure, but the Signal app uses end-to-end encryption and can protect your identity. Please read the terms and conditions.

The aftermath

Foster believes the revelations in these emails obtained by the ABC, and other details that have emerged warrant an independent inquiry.

"The most appropriate way forward is for an independent review to ensure this doesn't occur to any other refugees who are travelling," he said.

"The abuse of the INTERPOL Red Notice system, which is rampant around the world, cannot be used as it was in Hakeem's case to try and have an extradition back to their host country against their internationally recognised human rights."

Hakeem became an Australian citizen at a ceremony in Melbourne on March 12. He met the Prime Minister afterwards. ( ABC News )

Radha Stirling says she will be lobbying the Australian Government to make changes to its practices.

"Countries like Australia have zero protocols in place to protect citizens from INTERPOL abuse despite the issue having been highlighted in media and documentaries, and by organisations," she said.

"Had Hakeem been extradited to Bahrain and executed, the AFP could have faced lawsuits. This in itself should be enough to probe AFP internal affairs to consider changing their protocols."

The Department of Home Affairs conducted an internal review into "the circumstances leading up to Mr al-Araibi's detention". The report "did not identify any systemic weakness" but did identify "remediation actions" including revising procedures relating to Red Notices and the use of group emails for sharing information.

Home Affairs seems determined not to take the blame for Hakeem's arrest in Bangkok.

"It should be noted that Mr al-Araibi's decision to travel, the procedures followed by Thai authorities when a Red Notice is in place, and other factors contributed to his ongoing detention. Given this, even if this Red Notice had been lifted he may still have been detained in Thailand at the request of Bahrain," the report said.

After his release, Hakeem (centre) visited Canberra with Craig Foster (to his right) and met Foreign Affairs Minister Marise Payne (to his left). ( ABC News: Nick Haggarty )

When asked in Senate Estimates if he'd like to offer an apology to Hakeem, Border Force Commissioner Michael Outram said: "To offer an apology for him would say that I'm accepting that outcome, what happened in Thailand, was entirely due to that error. I can't say that without speculating."

Hakeem says he and his wife are still traumatised by what happened. For him, the most important thing is that his wife gets an apology.

"Sometimes my wife is crying, because she remembers what happened to me in Thailand," he said.

"This is a big mistake. I hope in the future it won't happen to me, or any other people … I could have been killed. It's not just a big mistake for me, but for my wife, my family, my friends."

Loading...

* Not her real name.