Alleged Australian detention camp rioters imprisoned

Seven men blamed for a riot that caused $7 million in damage to a remote Australian immigration detention camp had been flown to a mainland prison, an official said Thursday.

A standoff between protesting detainees and officials at the Christmas Island detention camp in the Indian Ocean ended Tuesday after police used tear gas to stop more than a day of unrest that prompted guards to flee the facility and left parts of the compound badly damaged.

There were no serious injuries in the unrest that broke out Monday following the death of an asylum seeker who escaped from the facility.

The men — five New Zealanders, a Tongan and an Afghan —were flown overnight in a chartered jet 2,600 1,600 miles to a maximum security prison in the west coast city of Perth, Immigration Minister Peter Dutton told Sydney Radio 2GB.

More would follow as the government was determined to bring the perpetrators of the damage to justice, he said.

The detention camp was built to house asylum seekers who came to Australia by boat from Indonesia, which is 300 miles to the north.

But asylum seekers were now outnumbered by criminals, including killers, armed robbers and pedophiles, Dutton said.

Of the 199 detainees on Christmas Island, 113 were foreigners who had been released from Australian prisons and were fighting Australian efforts to deport them.

Australia last year strengthened the power it has to cancel visas (PDF), making it mandatory to do so if a person has been sentenced to at least a year in jail.

Al Jazeera with The Associated Press