Voreqe Bainimarama says Isis recruiter will not be allowed into his country as Peter Dutton faces scrutiny over citizenship cancellation

This article is more than 1 year old

This article is more than 1 year old

The Fijian prime minister has declared the Australian-born Isis recruiter Neil Prakash will not be allowed into the country, in the latest development of an ongoing disagreement over Prakash’s citizenship.

Voreqe Bainimarama, the prime minister and minister for foreign affairs, told the Fiji Sun newspaper Prakash “cannot come here because he does not qualify”.

“At any rate, he is a terrorist and a member of Isis. We don’t entertain them nor do we accommodate them,” Bainimarama said.

Australia’s home affairs minister, Peter Dutton, has defended the cancellation of Prakash’s citizenship and maintained the 27-year-old is a citizen of Fiji despite the insistence of Fijian immigration authorities to the contrary.

Neil Prakash 'not a Fiji citizen': Dutton move to strip Australian citizenship in doubt Read more

Under Australian law a dual national can be stripped of their Australian citizenship if they have committed terrorist acts, but international law prohibits rendering a person stateless.

Prakash’s citizenship was revoked over his ties to Islamic State, and on government legal advice that he was a dual national with Fiji. Prakash was informed on 21 December, but it was only publicly revealed on Friday.

On Tuesday the head of Fiji’s immigration department said he had learned of the case through the media and had searched their records for Prakash, finding no sign of him ever being a citizen, seeking citizenship, or his father seeking it on his behalf.

Dutton responded that the citizenship was withdrawn “automatically” after an assessment by the Citizenship Loss Board. He said the government’s advice from the solicitor general was that Prakash was indeed a Fijian citizen.

However, Fijian immigration law has changed several times in the years since Prakash’s birth in Melbourne in 1991 to a Fijian-Indian father and Cambodian mother.

According to legal analysis obtained by Guardian Australia, it would appear the only way in which Prakash could have become and remained a Fijian citizen was under laws brought in following the 2006 coup.

Proposed terrorism laws risk making Australians stateless, law council warns Read more

Under the 1990 constitution Prakash’s father would have given up his Fijian citizenship if he had become an Australian citizen prior to Prakash’s birth, and would have been unable to pass on Fijian citizenship to his son.

If Prakash’s father had instead kept Fijian citizenship and thus passed it on to his son, under the 1997 constitution, Prakash – an Australian by birth – would have automatically forfeited his Fijian citizenship at the age of 22.

In 2009 the 1997 constitution was suspended, and under the Citizenship of Fiji Decree 2009, anyone born outside of Fiji was allowed to apply for citizenship, if their parent was a Fijian national at the time of that child’s birth.

However, the Fijian immigration department maintains there has never been an application by or on behalf of Prakash.

Prakash remains in a Turkish jail, facing terrorism charges which carry prison sentences of up to 15 years.

Australia has sought his extradition over his alleged role in two terrorism plots, including one to target Anzac Day services in Melbourne in 2015, and over his travel to Syria to fight with Isis.

Fiji has not sought his extradition, and it was not clear whether Bainimarama’s comments meant Prakash would be barred from Fiji because he wasn’t a citizen, or because of his terrorist affiliations.

The Australian prime minister, Scott Morrison, will travel to Fiji later this month, when it’s expected discussions will include Prakash.

Bainimarama’s office has not responded to requests for comment.

Confusion over international citizenship law has been something of a theme in the Australian parliament, with a number of MPs found to be potentially or actually ineligible because they had dual citizenship they weren’t aware of, or which they hadn’t properly rescinded.

The Prakash case also highlights concerns with the Coalition’s proposed terrorism legislation, which would dilute the required level of belief that an individual was a dual national in order to cancel their Australian citizenship.

The new laws, if passed, would allow a minister to strip someone with a terrorism conviction of Australian citizenship regardless of the severity of the conviction and need only be “reasonably satisfied” that the person would hold a second citizenship.

Dutton also said the government had informed Fiji about Prakash, a claim rejected by the director of Fiji’s immigration department, Nemani Vuniwaqa.

On Thursday the Herald Sun reported Dutton had argued with the department of foreign affairs and trade over informing Fiji and other nations that Australia would be stripping the citizenship of Prakash and four other terrorists.

The shadow minister for trade and investment, Jason Clare, called on Dutton to release the legal advice about Prakash.

“I don’t want to see this bloke as an Australian citizen, I’d rather see him as a citizen of the afterworld,” Clare told media. “But Peter Dutton’s the minister here and he’s got a responsibility to make the decisions according to the law, to make sure he gets them right and it looks, from what the Fijian prime minister’s just said this morning, that Peter Dutton’s stuffed up.”