Refugee family free as ASIO assessment overturned Justice Margaret Stone. A refugee family of five - including a boy born in immigration detention almost three years ago - has finally won freedom on the eve of a High Court challenge into their incarceration. The decision also marks the first time an independent review into secret ASIO reports on refugees has recommended withdrawing a negative security assessment. The Rahavan family, who fled Sri Lanka in 2009 only to be locked up in Australia after ASIO judged the parents a threat, were released in Sydney late on Wednesday night. A High Court challenge into the father's case was to begin next Tuesday in Canberra in a much-anticipated attempt to overturn a controversial 2004 ruling that permitted the government to hold people in indefinite detention. But ASIO has now rescinded its findings against both parents, having overturned another of the secret assessments last month for only the second time. The withdrawal in the Rahavan's case resulted from a review of the secret ASIO assessments by former federal court justice Margaret Stone, instigated last year after backbench complaints about the now 52 refugees trapped in a legal limbo. Refugees with adverse assessments by ASIO are not given a visa to live in Australia, but cannot appeal the finding or be sent home. Immigration Minister Brendan O'Connor has given the Rahavan family visas for release. "They will remain in the community on bridging visas with the same reporting conditions which apply to all bridging visa holders requiring them to keep the department informed of their current address, and any proposed change of address," a spokesman said in a statement last night. The change of heart by ASIO comes at a charged time in the politics of asylum seekers and security threats. The Opposition hounded the government in parliament last week after it was revealed the Immigration Department had left an Egyptian asylum seeker in a low-security centre despite being told he had been convicted of terrorism. ASIO had admitted a "clerical error" in the case of the Egyptian man caused a delay in identifying his previous conviction. But in this Rahavan's case, ASIO's director general David Irvine has accepted a recommendation from Justice Stone that the threat designation be withdrawn. Tamil community activist Bala Vigneswaran said he hoped Justice Stone would make similar recommendations for the remained 52 refugees with secret adverse assessments.