Christmas Island detention centre 'under control' after riot police move in

Immigration department says force was used against detainees who ‘resisted attempts to secure compounds’ during unrest sparked by death of escapee

Australia’s immigration minister, Peter Dutton, has said tear gas was used to wrest back control of the Christmas Island detention centre from a group of “hardened criminals”, including foreign-born gang members.

Dutton said some of this group, which the government claims exploited tensions to create unrest in the wake of the death of escaped Kurdish Iranian escapee Fazel Chegeni, would face prosecution for what he understood was “well over $1m in damage”.

If people think they can intimidate the government with this thuggish and illegal behaviour, they’ve got another thing coming,” he told reporters on Tuesday afternoon.

It followed an immigration department statement that “some force was used” to quell a prolonged protest inside the centre, where a group of detainees built barricades and allegedly threatened to use weapons to repel riot police.

The department said the entire centre was back under the “full and effective control” of staff and contractors – about 42 hours after the unrest began.

It said five detainees were being assessed for treatment of non life-threatening injuries or medical conditions but it was “not known whether these injuries were sustained during the disturbance itself or during the resolution of the operation”.

“Some force was used with a core group of detainees who had built barricades and actively resisted attempts to secure compounds, including threatened use of weapons and improvised weapons,” it said.

It said the Australian federal police operation to “regain control of the centre and ensure the welfare of those not participating in criminal damage activities was achieved largely through negotiation and cooperation with detainees”.

Guards from private security contractor Serco had been forced to retreat from the centre compound on Sunday night after angry confrontations reportedly stemming from an initial fight that broke out between a Serco emergency response team ERT and a group of Iranian detainees agitated over the death of Chegeni.

The department confirmed accounts from some detainees of severe damage in the common areas of the centre, after protesters who Dutton branded a “core group of criminals” lit fires and smashed walls and windows.

Dutton said of 199 on Christmas Island, 113 had a criminal history, including 11 armed robbers, five child sex offenders and four rapists.

Guardian Australia is also aware of one UK-born detainee, who has lived in Australia since five years of age, and whose most serious offence is dangerous driving.

Some detainees told the ABC the group had been armed with chainsaws, firebombs, machetes, bats and “hunks of iron”.

They also said they suspected tear gas and possibly rubber bullets were being used in a bid to end the standoff.

The department previously claimed this group had opportunistically exploited tensions arising during an initial peaceful protest about the death of Chegeni.

Chegeni, who had been stripped of refugee status over his involvement in an assault in Curtin detention centre on the Australian mainland, had somehow escaped the Christmas Island centre before his body was found at the bottom of a cliff nearby on Sunday.

His death is now subject to a coronial investigation but Dutton told parliament he had been told the circumstances were “not suspicious”.

Immigration said it was yet to survey full damage of the centre but repairs would be “a priority”. It would also investigate and prosecute those suspected of damaging commonwealth property, it said.

Some detainees told Guardian Australia during the standoff on Monday that a heavy-handed response from Serco’s ERT, in view of the level of violence allegedly used to subdue detainees in the recent past, was a central concern.

The department said peaceful negotiation had “always been the clear objective of all involved in the operation”.