A PAKISTANI warehouse worker swooped on by intelligence services, who deemed him a security risk, says he is not an extremist and has pleaded to be released.
Salman Ghumman was taken in to custody on December 21 by Immigration Department officials at Merlynston Station, just days after he was quizzed by authorities about phone calls made to Pakistan, NATO attacks, his movements and why he was in the country.
But the 23-year-old denied he was an extremist and said he was not a threat.
"I've got a beard. I can't think of any other reason (my visa was cancelled)," he said.
"I've got no future. I'm not a threat to this country."
Mr Ghumman's Facebook site links to a group backing terrorist Aafia Siddiqui, a Pakistani doctor with extensive terror links jailed for 86 years in 2010.
But authorities won't tell Mr Ghumman why he is being thrown out of the country.
"Then they interviewed me again and they were asking me one by one about my friends ... Most of friends are in Pakistan. I don't have (many friends) in Australia."
Mr Ghumman, who is being held at the Maribyrnong detention centre, came to Australia in July 2010 to study accounting at Northern Melbourne Institute of TAFE.
He lived in Melbourne's northern suburbs, worked in warehouses and attended mosques in Fawkner and Preston.
The Department of Immigration declined to say why Mr Ghumman's visa had been cancelled, but said he was now in the country unlawfully.
"The person no longer met the legal criteria to hold a visa, therefore the visa was cancelled making him an unlawful non-citizen and subject to detention," a spokeswoman said.
A spokeswoman for the Attorney-General's department also refused to say why Pakistani authorities had been contacted or whether he faced charges.
"It would not be appropriate to comment on operational matters," she said.
Liberty Victoria president Spencer Zifcak said adverse security assessments from ASIO meant people could be kept in detention indefinitely.
"The problem is these people cannot find out the reasons for these assessments," he said.
"To hold people indefinitely on no charges without appeal is in breach of virtually every human rights convention Australia has signed on to."
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