An immigration detainee who has claimed he is an Indigenous Australian, not someone from Fiji and has overstayed his visa, has been deported.
The man, calling himself Eddie David, 39, had been held in the Yongah Hill Detention Centre, in Perth, since June.
He initially claimed he was born on Murray Island in the Torres Strait in 1976.
He later said he was from somewhere in the region but was not sure where because his father died when he was young, his mother was absent, and he was illiterate and an alcoholic.
He claimed there had been a terrible mistake.
However, elders from the Torres Strait said they had never heard of him and wanted to know his lineage.
The Department of Immigration and Border Protection was certain he was in fact a Fijian man Rinay Rekash Singh, who arrived in Australia in early 1998.
It used fingerprint analysis and facial comparisons in its investigation.
A department spokesman yesterday confirmed a Fijian national had been removed from Australia.
