A judge has reserved his decision over whether an Iraqi refugee convicted of raping a schoolgirl should be deported.
The man was released from prison in May last year after serving a sentence for raping the Lower Hutt girl.
In the High Court in Wellington yesterday the lawyer for the Lower Hutt man said his life would be in danger if he returned to Iraq.
But Immigration Department lawyer Ian Carter said the man's son had been sent back to Iraq to live.
"Whatever the dangers in Iraq, the family evidently assessed them as less for the son than living in Naenae."
Justice Ron Young said the conditions that had made the man a refugee had changed with the new Iraqi regime.
