A former offshore processing official says refugee advocates are encouraging asylum seekers in Australia's immigration detention centres to self harm so the advocates can use the incidents for their own political agenda.
Greg Lake told Mailonline a handful of 'extreme' refugee campaigners coached 'ringleaders' in detention centres who stood over more vulnerable asylum seekers, forcing them to sew their lips together, make suicide attempts and harm themselves to gain publicity for the advocates' cause.
'Then these advocates are ready with a media release to promote their cause,' he said, 'they often know about the incident before the minister or the department does and that's because they organised it.'
He said the practice was confined to a minority of advocates, but that it was 'despicable'.
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Mr Lake is a former Department of Immigration regional manager who once worked in Nauru detention centre. He resigned in December 2012 and has since been critical of both sides in the immigration and asylum seeker debate.
Greg Lake said the actions of the extremist refugee advocates were 'at odds with their mandate'.
