Australia insists man who lost citizenship isn't stateless

Australian officials insisted Wednesday that a suspected militant had not been left stateless after he was stripped of his Australian citizenship over his alleged links to the Islamic State group.

Australia announced this past weekend that Australian-born Neil Prakash had become the 12th dual national to lose his Australian citizenship for extremist links.

But a newspaper reported on Wednesday a Fijian government official saying the 27-year-old was not a citizen of Fiji.

Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton said an Australian board of senior officials had determined Prakash was a dual national before he lost his Australian citizenship.

“The government has been in close contact with the government of Fiji since Mr. Prakash was determined to have lost his citizenship,” Dutton said in a statement. “Australia will continue our close cooperation with Fiji on this issue.”

Prakash, who has Fijian and Cambodian parents, has been in a Turkish prison since 2016 when he was arrested near the Syrian border for allegedly attempting to cross with false documents.

Australia is demanding Turkey extradite Prakash, who faces allegations of inciting a terror plot in his home state of Victoria. However, the extradition will have to wait until the conclusion of Turkey’s criminal proceedings against Prakash.

Prakash has previously admitted being a member of the Islamic State group but has denied having anything to do with the extremists in Australia.

Immigration Minister David Coleman said the Australian board made no mistake in determining that Prakash had been a dual national eligible to lose his Australian citizenship over his service to a declared terrorist organization.

“This is an evil individual who is determined to kill Australians and the citizenship board in reviewing this matter has done its job,” Coleman told reporters.

“I’m not going into the specifics of any discussions between Australia and other governments, … but it’s very clear that the citizenship board has followed the appropriate procedure here,” Coleman added.

Fiji’s Immigration Department Director Nemani Vuniwaqa told the Fiji Sun newspaper that his department had no record of Prakash every taking out Fijian citizenship.

Vuniwaqa did not immediately respond on Wednesday to The Associated Press’s request for comment.