Australia court curtails govt’s powers on citizenship

Canberra (TIP): Australia‘s highest court on June 8 found a Cabinet minister illegally cancelled a suspected Islamic State group fighter’s citizenship in a landmark ruling that curtails how governments can deal with extremists. The High Court, in a 6-to-1 judgment, restored Delil Alexander’s Australian citizenship that was removed in July last year by the then-Home Affairs Minister Karen Andrews. Alexander (35), who was born in Australia and has Turkish citizenship by descent, is in a Syrian prison on terrorism convictions. He left Australia for Turkey in 2013 and crossed the Syrian border before he was arrested by a Kurdish militia in 2017. Andrews cancelled his citizenship based on an Australian intelligence report that he had joined Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant and had likely engaged in fighting and recruiting. (AP)