{"id":27316,"date":"2018-12-29T09:22:14","date_gmt":"2018-12-29T09:22:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=27316"},"modified":"2018-12-29T09:22:14","modified_gmt":"2018-12-29T09:22:14","slug":"australia-strips-citizenship-of-alleged-isil-recruiter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=27316","title":{"rendered":"Australia strips citizenship of alleged ISIL recruiter"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The Australian government has stripped the citizenship of a man it believes is a top recruiter for the Islamic State of Iraq and Levant (ISIL<\/a>) group.<\/p>\n

Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton said on Saturday that Melbourne-born Neil Prakash was “a very dangerous individual”, who had acted “inconsistently” with his allegiance to Australia<\/a>.<\/p>\n

“If given the opportunity, Mr Prakash would harm or kill Australians and our country is a safer place for him having lost his Australian citizenship,” Dutton said in a televised news conference.<\/p>\n

Prakash, who Dutton said had been central to ISIL’s efforts in the Middle East<\/a>, has been held in Turkey<\/a>\u00a0where he is charged with terrorism-related activities since being caught there in October 2016.<\/p>\n

The 27-year-old is wanted in Australia over an alleged plot to behead a police officer.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Prakash, whose mother was Cambodian and father a Fijian, held both Australian and Fijian citizenship through his father.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Trump says Erdogan will ‘eradicate’ ISIL in Syria (2:51)<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n

Under Australia’s citizenship laws, a dual national can lose his Australian citizenship if he acts contrary to his allegiance to the country by choosing to be involved in “terrorism”.<\/p>\n

ISIL, also known as ISIS, was declared a “terrorist organisation” in May 2016 for this purpose, the Home Affairs Office said in a statement, and Prakash is the 12th person to be stripped of citizenship so far.<\/p>\n

‘Real threat’<\/h2>\n

Dutton said the law prevents the government from rendering somebody stateless so they must have Australian citizenship and citizenship of another country.<\/p>\n

A former rapper, Prakash has previously admitted being a member of ISIL but said he had nothing to do with the group in Australia.<\/p>\n

Dutton said Australia’s internal spy agency, the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO), had thwarted 14 attempted attacks, including a plan to smuggle explosives onto an A380 flight to the Middle East.<\/p>\n

“The threat is very real,” he said. “The priority for us is to make sure that people like Neil Prakash don’t come back to Australia. We don’t want them here.”<\/p>\n

He has been linked to several Australia-based attack plans and has appeared in ISIL videos and magazines. Australia says he actively recruited Australian men, women and children and encouraged violence.<\/span><\/p>\n

Prakash has been notified of the decision by letter and Fiji<\/a>‘s government has also been notified, a source close to the Australian government told Reuters news agency.<\/p>\n

Australia has been pressing Turkey to extradite Prakash since he was first detained, but the request was rejected in July.<\/p>\n

It will remain in place until the conclusion of his case and any custodial sentence, The Australian newspaper reported.<\/p>\n

Canberra cancelled Prakash’s passport in 2014 and announced financial sanctions in 2015, which cover anyone giving him financial assistance, with a punishment of up to 10 years in jail.<\/p>\n

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Has ISIL really been defeated in Syria? (25:20)<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Australian government has stripped the citizenship of a man it believes is a top recruiter for the Islamic State of Iraq and Levant (ISIL) group. Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton said on Saturday that Melbourne-born Neil Prakash was “a very dangerous individual”, who had acted “inconsistently” with his allegiance to Australia. “If given the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":27317,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-27316","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-middle_east_news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27316","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=27316"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27316\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/27317"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=27316"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=27316"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=27316"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}