Police charge former detainee in Perth with breaking visa curfew and tampering with ankle monitor

A Burundi-born former immigration detainee who allegedly breached his curfew multiple times and failed to keep his tracking device “in working order” will remain behind bars after appearing in court on the charges.

Kimbengere Gosoge faced Midland Magistrates Court on Thursday accused of breaching the residential curfew that required him to be at home during a certain period five times between April 26 and May 1.

He is also accused of with “failing to keep a monitoring device in working order”.

During his brief hearing, the 42-year-old, who was wearing a light coloured plaid shirt, did not speak with his lawyer Rhys Mola asking the court for a two-week adjournment to allow him to take further instructions from his client.

He also said his client would not apply for bail today with the former immigration detainee now having to spend the next fortnight on remand in prison.

A prosecutor for the Commonwealth did not oppose the adjournment.

Mr Gosoge was arrested by Australian Federal Police on Wednesday.

If found guilty of the offences, he faces a maximum of five years in jail or a $93,900 fine.

He was one of 152 non-citizens released from immigration detention as the result of a High Court decision last November that ruled it was illegal to hold stateless individuals indefinitely.

As part of their new visa conditions a number of the former detainees were subject to curfews as well as electronic monitoring.

Four other people have been charged with breaching these conditions, two in Victoria, one in NSW and one in Brisbane, since the bridging visas were reissued to the cohort in March.

Others had faced court for alleged breaches earlier, but those charges were dropped across the board after a technical bungle forced the Government to reissue all the visas including one the ex-detainee who is accused of the horror bashing of an elderly Girrawheen couple.