An Egyptian immigrant who repeatedly stabbed his sister’s boyfriend has had his visa cancellation overturned after a court found immigration minister Tony Burke’s attempt to deport him took too long.
The 51-year-old violent criminal, anonymised as XPLW by the Federal Court, arrived in Australia on a student visa in 2007, married an Australian citizen and was given a partner visa in 2012.
In 2014 XPLW was jailed for seven years for the stabbing, where he pulled out a knife, shouted “I will kill you now”, and stabbed his victim in the eye, throat, upper chest and hand, leaving him a physical disability and psychological injury, according to a 2022 tribunal decision to revoke the cancellation of his visa.
That decision was based on a determination he was a low risk of reoffending, faced a risk of harm as a Coptic Christian if forced to return to Egypt, and was needed to help his five-year-old niece and elderly parents.
In January 2025, 22 months later, Mr Burke set aside the tribunal’s decision and decided to cancel XPLW’s partner visa, resulting in a legal challenge in August and the court’s decision to quash Mr Burke’s order, which was handed down on Friday.
Federal Court Judge Christopher Horan found that Mr Burke’s decision was not made within a reasonable time, and he therefore acted beyond his powers, citing an 18-month period until June 2024 where no consideration was given to XPLW’s case.
The Home Affairs Department blamed resourcing issues, lack of funding and staff training requirements for the delay, but Judge Horan noted that “the evidence in the present case does not suggest that such assessments are particularly time consuming or complex”.
“One might expect that sufficient resources could be dedicated to enable such cases to be identified for consideration by the Minister without languishing for months or years without even an initial assessment or ‘triage’,” he stated.
Last week a Lebanese man who inappropriately touched a 15-year-old girl was allowed to stay in the country by the tribunal under Mr Burke’s Ministerial Direction 110, as was an Iranian asylum seeker heroin addict who was jailed for nearly eight years for drug offences while in immigration detention.
More than 30 serious criminals have been spared deportation since Mr Burke deported South African national Matthew Gruter, who has no criminal record, on November 17 for his political opinions.
During that period two other men have also been put in immigration detention for their alleged associations with nationalist activism, including British veteran Ryan Turner in Western Australia, and Ukrainian refugee Yan Zakharian.
Mr Burke, who is pro-multuculturalism and pro-mass immigration, has maintained Direction 110 since July 2024 despite the order resulting in dozens of paedophiles, killers and rapists being allowed to stay in Australia.
Header image: Tony Burke pandering to immigrants at a festival (Facebook).
The post Egyptian knifeman allowed to stay in Australia due to immigration minister fail first appeared on The Noticer.
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