Australian officials did not consult Fiji on revoking Prakash’s citizenship

The Australian government did not consult the Fijian government or any experts on Fijian law before determining that the Islamic State recruiter Neil Prakash had ceased to be an Australian citizen because he was Fijian.

The country last month stripped Neil Prakash of citizenship after claiming he was Fijian -- prompting strenuous denials from the authorities in Suva and an embarrassing diplomatic rift.

Prakash is accused of being a member of the ISIS group and identified as the 12th Australian dual-national to lose their passport over terrorism links.

He is currently in Turkey facing charges of joining the organization.

At a committee hearing on Wednesday, home affairs department officials revealed that the minister, Peter Dutton, relied solely on the government’s own advice, despite what the shadow attorney general, Mark Dreyfus, described as clear evidence on the public record that Prakash was not Fijian.

The officials repeatedly refused to release advice on Prakash’s citizenship status and on the constitutionality of a bill to increase Dutton’s powers to strip people convicted of terrorist offenses of Australian citizenship.

On Wednesday home affairs department officials told the parliamentary joint committee on intelligence and security that Dutton had determined that Prakash ceased to be an Australian citizen in August or September.

Dutton relied on legal advice from the Australian government solicitor (AGS) special counsel, Ian Deane, who attended the hearing but refused to explain on what basis he had concluded Prakash was Fijian.

Asked if the government had taken any steps to verify with the Fijian government that Prakash was Fijian, Geddes replied: “No, no we did not.”

Dreyfus noted that under the 1997 Fijian constitution dual citizenship is prohibited and a minor who obtains another citizenship must renounce it before their 22nd birthday or else forfeit their Fijian citizenship.

He reasoned that even if Prakash – who was born in Melbourne in May 1991 – had received Fijian citizenship from his father at birth he had ceased to be a Fijian citizen in May 2013.

“On publicly available material it’s possible to determine that Prakash could not possibly have been a Fijian citizen,” the shadow attorney general concluded.