Albert Lani with a photo of his jailed son Ose, 15. Sixty Indonesian crew members who claim to be under 18 are being treated as adults in jails and immigration detention centres across Australia after wrist X-ray examinations that police say prove they are not children. But defence lawyers citing a number of studies and judicial rulings say the X-rays are unreliable and inadequate to determine the ages of children. Fourteen months after Ose Lani, 15, and Ako Lani and John Ndollu, both 16, were detained on an asylum-seeker boat near Ashmore Reef no Australian police or immigration officials have contacted anybody in Manamolo, the boys' village on Roti Island, to establish their ages. No official has informed family the boys are in an Australian jail.

Nijanel Lani with his brother Ako, 16. "The three boys went fishing one day and never returned. We thought they had been lost at sea," Albert Lani, father of Ose Lani, said. Mr Lani wept when Margaret Bocquet-Siek, a volunteer interpreter phoned him from Brisbane last month to say his son was alive. "Ose's father was crying with relief … the boy was only 14 when he left the village," Dr Bocquet-Siek said. Mark Plunkett, a Brisbane barrister, and Tony Sheldon, an Indonesia expert, have gathered affidavits in the village that prove all three boys are under 18. Ominus Ledoh, with his brother-in-law John Ndollu, 16. Lawyers have obtained extracts of birth certificates confirming that Ose Lani is 15 and John Ndollu is 16. A birth certificate showing Ako Lani is 16 is being sent from Indonesia.

But prosecutors say it will take weeks, if not months, for police to verify the evidence, leaving the boys vulnerable to abuse in a jail that houses some of Queensland's worst offenders. A Department of Immigration interviewer reported last October that on balance all three boys were believed to be under 18, but their lawyers had not been told about the assessment for more than six months. The boys were arrested, manacled and flown to the Brisbane jail in January. In Manamolo village, Jublina Ndollu, a 55-year-old widow, cried when Mr Sheldon showed her a photo of her son John, who she has not seen since he failed to return home in April last year. Mrs Ndollu walks 10 kilometres each day to work in rice paddies because her son cannot support her. The only payment she receives is the small amount of rice she carries home on her back.

Onimus Ledoh, the village's spokesman and John Ndollu's brother-in-law, appealed to Australia to release the boys, who, he said, were tricked by people smugglers because they were uneducated and poor. "The people smugglers come to this part of Indonesia because the boys are vulnerable," Mr Ledoh said. "They trick the boys by offering them money to get on the boats and then they cannot get off … they are trapped." Ose Lani was offered $500 to work on the boat, a sum he could only dream about in his village. The real people smugglers, who received more than $10,000 per asylum seeker, left the boat before it entered Australian waters.

Defence lawyers in the Northern Territory and Queensland are planning a campaign to expose the way federal authorities are treating young Indonesians who were duped by people smugglers to crew asylum-seeker boats to Australia. Lawyers say the police's reliance on wrist X-rays is based on a technique developed in the US in the 1930s which is highly questionable. The Immigration Department has also reportedly questioned its accuracy. Loading Justice Dean Mildren in the Northern Territory Supreme Court early this month dismissed an application to free the boys after the court heard it was lawful for authorities to detain children for as long as was required for a decision to be made about whether to prosecute. "I must say I am staggered, absolutely staggered it has taken so long," Justice Mildren said.