A South Sudanese man taken in by Australia as a child refugee has been stripped of Australian citizenship ahead of his deportation over a decade after the “violent and terrifying attack” on a 17-year-old girl.
Jal Galuak was 13-years-old when he followed the teenage high school student into a park, threatened her with a cricket bat and raped her in April 2007. The offence took place in the Victoria state capital, Melbourne.
Galuak spent the years after the sexual assault amassing a string of serious criminal offences, including false imprisonment, robbery, making threats to kill and drug possession.
He initially avoided detection over the sexual assault for close to five years, before a drink-driving arrest and subsequent DNA test in 2011 linked him to the crime, Nine News reports.
In light of his recidivism and low chance of rehabilitation, Department of Home Affairs revoked Galuak’s Australian citizenship – which he was granted in November 2007 – on June 22.
“The Tribunal finds that the consistent pattern of serious and often violent offending from 2007 until his imprisonment in 2015, coupled with his poor prospects of rehabilitation, leads the Tribunal to a conclusion that he has shown scant regard for upholding and obeying the laws of Australia,” the tribunal found.
“There is a substantial risk of re-offending and, accordingly in terms of the protection of Australian society, the Tribunal finds it would be contrary to the public interest for Mr Galuak to remain an Australian citizen.”
The tribunal rejected Galuak’s claim that he would be rendered “stateless” if he was stripped of his Australian citizenship, asserting that as he was born to a South Sudanese mother and father he had an “an inalienable right to enjoy South Sudanese citizenship and nationality”.
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