Bahraini footballer held in Thailand won’t return to Australia soon: Payne

A Bahraini football player with Australian residency who has been detained in Thailand for a month and a half will not return to Australia soon, Australian Foreign Minister Marise Payne said during her visit to Bangkok yesterday. Payne said during a press conference she had raised her concerns with her Thai counterpart and promised to be “in very close contact” with Thai authorities about Hakeem Alaraibi’s case, but called his immediate return to Australia “an impossibility.”Alaraibi, 25, was apprehended at Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi Airport during a holiday with his family in late November due to an arrest warrant issued by Bahrain. He has been detained in a Thai prison ever since, awaiting a court hearing for his deportation back to his home country. Alaraibi, a former national football player for Bahrain who now plays for a Melbourne team, was convicted in absentia in 2014 on charges of vandalising a police station in 2012, a charge he denies, saying he was representing Bahrain in a match at the time. He said he was tortured in his home country for criticising a relative of the royal family.In 2014, he fled to Australia, where he was granted permanent residency in 2017. Thailand does not recognise the status of refugees and asylum-seekers, who are generally treated as illegal immigrants and incarcerated. The Southeast Asian country usually sends them back to face persecution at home. Alaraibi’s continued detention in Thailand comes despite calls from Australia, FIFA and human rights groups for his return to Australia.