00:00Well, let's bring in our correspondent, Bill Birtles, in Indonesia.
00:05Bill, it's taken years of advocacy to get to this point.
00:09What got the deal over the line?
00:11Nikari, it was the insistence from the Indonesian side that the men are being transferred to
00:16Australia as prisoners rather than released.
00:19Now, we know this agreement was signed on Friday in a virtual meeting between Home Affairs
00:24Minister Tony Burke and Indonesia's top law minister, Yusrul Mahindra.
00:28That paved the way for these five men to leave Indonesia in a pretty similar way to
00:32how they arrived on a commercial Jetstar flight into Darwin earlier today, although this time
00:37they were accompanied by three consular officials.
00:40But the sticking point for many weeks of negotiations was whether or not they could continue to
00:46be imprisoned or at least have the status of prisoners initially while in Australia.
00:51Legal experts said that wasn't possible, but Minister Mahindra here in Jakarta insists
00:56to the ABC that these five men did leave the country as prisoners.
01:02They were transferred as prisoners, even though it looks awfully like them being released
01:08and deported, because as far as the Australian government is concerned, now having arrived
01:13in Australia, these five are free men.
01:16Nonetheless, Jakarta says they were transferred as prisoners and that it was enough to allow
01:21this to go ahead.
Comments