Cash to smugglers a crime: Amnesty Report damns 'lawless' Australia By Jewel Topsfield Australian officials who paid people smugglers to return a boat of asylum seekers to Indonesia committed a transnational crime and put dozens of lives at risk, according to a damning report that calls for a royal commission into the scandal. 
In its report Amnesty International also calls for an investigation into a second case of possible payments to a crew intercepted by the Australian Navy and Border Force on   July25.
"When it comes to its treatment of those seeking asylum, Australia is becoming a lawless state," Amnesty International refugee researcher Anna Shea says.
In   June Fairfax Media revealed an Indonesian police investigation found people smugglers had been paid more than $US30,000 by Australian officials to return a boat that was headed for New Zealand.
The revelations - never denied by former prime minister Tony Abbott - prompted a Senate inquiry, due to report next year, and caused a diplomatic incident with Indonesia.
Ms Shea says all the available evidence points to Australian officials committing a transnational crime by, in effect, directing a people smuggling operation in   May this year, paying a boat crew and then instructing them exactly where to land in Indonesia.
The report By Hook or by Crook - Australia's Abuse of Asylum Seekers at Sea says Australian officials may have also breached the people smuggling provisions in the Australian criminal code, although some public officials may have immunity from liability. It accuses Australian officials of keeping asylum seekers - including a pregnant woman, two children and an infant - in cells for about a week on a Border Force ship after being told they could bathe there. It says some were denied medical care or access to their own medication.
The report also contradicts claims made by the Operation Sovereign Border taskforce that the   May 2015 operation was intended to save lives following a distress call.
"The crew and asylum seekers - interviewed separately - consistently told Amnesty International that the boat was not in distress at the time of either interception on 17 or 22   May."
Instead, Amnesty International says Border Force and Navy officials put dozens of lives at risk by forcing asylum seekers onto poorly equipped vessels, one of which ran out of fuel necessitating a dangerous mid-sea transfer.
Amnesty International also calls for an investigation into a second possible cash payment on   July 25, when Australia intercepted a boat with 25 asylum seekers from Bangladesh, Myanmar and Pakistan.
Passengers told the human rights organisation that when they were put on a new boat on   August 1, crew had two new bags they had not seen before.
However an Indonesian police officer told Fairfax Media that crew members and asylum seekers on the second boat had made no mention of bribes or payments made by Australian officials.
A spokeswoman for Immigration Minister Peter Dutton denied all of the claims being made in the Amnesty report.