Court orders Australian government to release Iranian asylum seeker detained since 2013

Decision to free Ned Kelly Emeralds brings number of people released after high court’s indefinite immigration detention ruling to 142

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The federal court has ordered the government to free Iranian asylum seeker Ned Kelly Emeralds, who spent a decade in immigration detention, the first release ordered since the new high court precedent on indefinite detention.

In what he had earlier called a “particularly disturbing case”, justice Geoffrey Kennett found Emeralds’ detention was unlawful because there was “no real prospect” of his deportation “becoming practicable in the reasonably foreseeable future”.

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