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CANBERRA, Friday (Reuters) Australia said on Friday it would investigate why former Bangladeshi prime minister Kazi Zafar Ahmed, convicted of corruption, had been granted refugee status in Australia where he was receiving a disability pension.

Prime Minister John Howard said he was seeking information on how immigration officials handled the case of Ahmed, who was already out of Bangladesh in 1999 when he was sentenced to 15 years in jail for graft.

"The decision was apparently taken by the (immigration) department without apparently any reference to the minister," Howard told Australian radio.

"I am going to make a few inquiries about it. On the face of it it seems a puzzling decision but there may be a proper explanation by the people who made it."

Ahmed was prime minister during the rule of former President Hossain Mohammad Ershad who was deposed from power during a popular uprising in December 1990.

He left Bangladesh for Australia in September 1999 to be treated for heart problems but in his absence was tried and convicted.

Ahmed returned to Bangladesh in 2001 and was arrested.

But Australian media said he was released on bail after lodging an appeal against his sentence and in 2002 returned to live in Sydney with a daughter where he was now claiming a disability support pension because of a kidney condition.

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