Australian born Islamic State terrorist Neil Prakash released from jail in Turkey

Notorious Islamic State terrorist, Melbourne-born Neil Prakash, has been released from jail in Turkey. But his future is still in limbo.

Exclusive: Notorious Islamic State terrorist, Australian-born Neil Prakash, has been released from jail in Turkey.

News Corp can reveal Prakash completed his jail term in the city of Diyarbakir earlier this month, and was transferred to immigration detention.

The 30-year-old will be held in secure detention while Turkish authorities decide his future.

Born in Melbourne to an Australian mother of Cambodian descent and a Fijian father, he remains in legal limbo.

Australia revoked his citizenship in 2018 and cancelled his passport, meaning he cannot return here. And while the Australian Government argued it had not rendered him stateless because he was eligible for Fijian citizenship through his father, Fiji has said it will not recognise his citizenship.

Turkey may seek to deport him, but would potentially need to find a third country willing to take him.

Prakash’s release came three years after a court in Kilis, on the Turkish-Syrian border, sentenced him to 7.5 years’ jail on terrorism offences.

With time already served, he became eligible for release at the end of last year.

Neil Prakash in court on September 27, 2018 in Kilis, Turkey. Picture: News Corp Australia

He was arrested by Turkish border guards in October 2016 as he tried to sneak across the border from Syria, and spent more than five years locked up in prison in Gaziantep, a major city an hour from Kilis.

Several months ago, he was moved to a second prison in Diyarbakir, 300km away, as he neared the end of his sentence. Authorities in the Diyarbakir Number 1 F Type Prison registered him as being an Australian citizen.

He was recently transferred back to an immigration detention centre at Elbeyli, near Gaziantep Airport, and his citizenship registration there was not known.

The Australian Government stripped him of his citizenship after the Turkish courts refused to extradite him to Australia to face trial here on several terrorism charges including incursion into a foreign country — essentially becoming a foreign fighter — a crime that carries a maximum penalty of life in prison.

Australian-born Islamic State terrorist Neil Prakash. Picture: AAP

The then-Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton subsequently revoked his citizenship, telling News Corp at the time that the Government was determined to deal with foreign terrorist fighters “as far from our shores as possible.’’

He said Prakash was a “very dangerous individual” who “hopefully won’t see the light of day for a long time”.

“People should recognise if given the opportunity, Mr Prakash would harm and kill Australians,” he said.

Prakash became a supporter and recruiter for Islamic State and urged others to commit violent jihad on Australian soil, before he travelled to Syria in 2013 to join the self-declared caliphate. News Corp obtained an exclusive photograph confirming he took up arms for the terror group while in Syria. He also spread Islamic State propaganda in English, and urged others to carry out attacks in Melbourne and Sydney.

He told arresting officers in Turkey he had married two wives and fathered three children during his time in Syria, but his family members have never been publicly identified. If his claims are true and his children are identified, they remain eligible for Australian citizenship.

During his two-year trial in Turkey, Prakash admitted joining Islamic State but denied being a leader of the group and told the Kilis court he regretted his association with the terror group.

A spokesman for Home Affairs Minister Karen Andrews declined to comment on Prakash’s case.

Originally published as Australian born Islamic State terrorist Neil Prakash released from jail in Turkey