The friends of motorcycle club president Alex Vella are rallying around the Maltese chief of the Rebels MC, who has been left ‘stranded’ in his country of birth after Australian immigration minister Scott Morrison refused him a visa to return to Australia while on a holiday in Malta.

4,000 signatures have already been left on an online petition on Change.org which described the cancellation of Vella’s visa as a “pathetic un-Australian act of bastardry”.

Vella, 61, had been living in Australia with his family for 46 years since he migrated there from Malta as a child. His visa was cancelled earlier in summer under ‘character provisions’ banning him from re-entry.

The ban against going back to Australia has been issued under “character provisions” in the Migration Act. Vella migrated to Australia in the 1960s, and has been denied Australian citizenship. His solicitor says that Vella has only ever been convicted on “minor offences”, and wants the government to make public the reason for the visa refusal.

But the Australian government treats the Rebels bikie gang as “one of Australia’s highest risk criminal threats” and claims that Vella “continues to exert significant influence” over the group despite his exile in Malta.

According to court documents obtained by Daily Mail Australia, minister Scott Morrison’s decision relied on detailed intelligence provided by an Australian Crime Commission-led task force and outlined in a document tendered in the federal court last month.

The ‘Attero’ task force was established in 2012 to ‘disrupt, disable and dismantle criminal activities of the Rebels MC – one of Australia’s highest risk criminal threats’, the document states.

Attero investigators allege that under Vella’s leadership the Rebels have engaged in drug dealing, money laundering, serious assaults, kidnapping, extortion, firearms offences, threatening law enforcement officers and intimidation of court witnesses. It is believed the gang has more than 2,000 members across the country.

Attero investigators said that between January 2012 and June 2013, 718 Rebels MC members, nominees and associates were either reported or arrested in relation to 1,211 charges for offences ranging from violence-related offences, including serious assault, stalking, kidnapping and affray, firearms and weapons offences, drugs offences, and property, street and traffic offences.

Vella has denied running a criminal organisation and has challenged the Department of Immigration’s decision in the federal court.

Vella, in the past described as a millionaire businessman, is raising money with $50 t-shirts on his new website alexvella.com.au, which recounts his story of migrating to Australia.

A campaign under the slogan ‘BRING HIM HOME’ also calls on well-wishers for their support. The Let Alex Vella Return to Australia Facebook page has received over 21,000 likes.

Migrant ‘rebel’

Alessio Emanuel Vella was born in 1953, the seventh in a family of 11 children. After school he would work on the family farm, and at the age of eight he worked for local builders, carrying bricks and water for two shillings (about 23c) a day. In 1967, his parents moved to Australia after five of his elder brothers had moved there, where his family ran a strawberry farm.

At 16, he was in professional boxing, fighting for $12 a fight, and in 1978 he won the Maltese light heavyweight championship. He started the Rebels Motorcycle Club in Dubbo in 1973 and since then has made a living in property and real estate.

Vella has described the Rebels MC as a family of friends who love motorcycles and the lifestyle, and that they are targeted by ‘anti-bikie’ laws forbidding their association simply because they are outside social norms.

Vella has also acknowledged the existence of criminal elements inside biker chapters, but that it should be law enforcement to deal with unruly members.

But the Attero task force claims that Vella has overseen the expansion of the Rebels ‘OMCG’ – outlaw motorcycle gang – from three chapters into the largest one in Australia.

“He also acknowledges he is aware that several members of the Rebels MC have been involved in criminal activities.

The fact that Rebels MC members remain members despite criminal convictions, including convictions obtained whilst being members of the OMCG, contradicts Vella’s assertions that Rebels MC does not condone criminal activity by its members, and allows them to remain members,” Attero investigators said.

The Rebels expanded from Australia to include international chapters in 20 other countries: Cambodia, Canada, Costa Rica, Croatia, England, Fiji, Germany, Greece, Indonesia, Italy, Laos, Lebanon, Malta, New Zealand, the Philippines, Singapore, Spain, Sweden, Thailand and the USA.