Cornelia Rau is a German and Australian citizen who was unlawfully detained for a period of ten months in 2004 and 2005 as part of the Australian Government's mandatory detention program.
Her detention became the subject of a government inquiry which was later expanded to investigate over 200 other cases of suspected unlawful detention by the Australian government's Department of Immigration and Multicultural and Indigenous Affairs (DIMIA).
She disappeared from Manly Hospital on 17 March 2004, and, in February 2005, it was revealed that she had been unlawfully detained at Brisbane Women's Correctional Centre, a prison, and later at Baxter Detention Centre, after being classified as a suspected illegal immigrant or non-citizen by the Immigration Department when she refused to reveal her true identity.[1][2]
Rau was the inspiration for the character Sofie Werner portrayed by Yvonne Strahovski in the 2020 show Stateless.[3]