There was no limit to how long the four foreign nationals who attempted to enter Bermuda on forged Japanese passports in January could be detained after their deportation order was made, lawyers learned in Supreme Court yesterday.

However if the three who are currently still in Bermuda are not deported by Monday, they will appear before Acting Puisne Judge Philip Storr once more to argue they have been detained longer than is "reasonably necessary", in a bid to secure their release from prison.

The four were discovered to be travelling on forged passports when they were questioned by officials in Japanese as they attempted to leave Bermuda on January 11. None of them spoke Japanese.

They have been remanded ever since, appearing in Magistrates' Court three times. A deportation order for all four was signed by Deputy Governor Tim Gurney on February 20, although it was not served on the four until March 11. However they could not be returned to their country of origin until their identities could be established.

Originally they were all thought to be Chinese, however The Royal Gazette now understands one of them is actually from Singapore - a development that helps explain why it has taken so long to identify them.

The eldest, who gave his name as Hedong Sun, turned out to actually be Tan Kok Foo of Singapore. He left Bermuda at the weekend. The only woman of the group, Fengzhen Zang, was due to leave Bermuda on Sunday night, however her passport did not arrive in time, and she appeared in Supreme Court along with Minxiang Zheng and Zhenyong Huang on Monday morning.

The three appeared before Mr. Storr for their lawyer Richard Horseman to argue that they were being unlawfully detained in prison. Mr. Horseman argued that under the Bermuda Immigration Act the three could only be detained for 28 days after the deportation order was served.

In this case, with the order served on March 11, the time for the three to be lawfully detained expired on April 8 - meaning that Commissioner of Prisons John Prescod had no lawful authority for keeping the three imprisoned after that date as they waited to be deported.

Mr. Horseman said he spoke with Mr. Prescod on April 8, and the Commissioner had said he would release the foreign nationals. However, Mr. Horseman added, when he spoke with Mr. Prescod later that same day the Commissioner said the permanent secretary of Home Affairs had advised him not to release the applicants.

"They know they are holding these prisoners unlawfully yet they refuse to release them," said Mr. Horseman.

The deportation order itself, he added, was progressing well. The question was why they were still incarcerated when the 28-day time limit had expired.

Crown counsel Leighton Rochester made an application explaining that his office had reasons for continuing to detain the three beyond the 28-day limit, but Mr. Storr still wanted to know what legal authority they had to go beyond that limit.

"I'm wondering if this detention has been lawful since day one, quite frankly," he said.

However, as Mr. Storr clarified, while a 28-day time limit does exist under one subsecton of the Act, under another it does say such people may be detained as directed by the Governor, so long as it was necessary to detain them.

And, said Mr. Rochester later, the Crown was vigorously asserting that in light of the language barriers and the lies the four had told - about their nationalities, passports, and names - it was reasonably necessary to detain them for longer than 28 days until they could be identified, so long as steps were taken to do that within a reasonable time.

"There is no time limit on which person may be detained after a deportation order has been made," said Mr. Storr. "The deportation orders had been drawn on a misapprehension, which became apparent this morning, that there is a limit of time during which person can be detained.

"The Governor can attach such conditions on a deportation order as he wishes so that person may be detained for so long as is necessary to secure his or her removal from Bermuda."

However now that the three's identities have been confirmed, he added, it was simply a matter of securing air passage. "If that takes more than a week from today it may well be that their detention is unreasonable."

He therefore adjourned the matter until next Monday morning at ten a.m. The remaining three nationals are expected to secure passage on airlines leaving Bermuda tomorrow, Saturday and Sunday.