The US District Court for the District of Columbia [official website] on Thursday entered an order that stripped an Egyptian-born man of his naturalized US citizenship [opinion, PDF] for lying during his naturalization process. The US government had claimed that Khaled Abu al-Dahab was a senior officer of the al-Qaeda network and operated an al-Qaeda communications hub from his apartment in California. The government described in detail his connection to terrorism in the original complaint [complaint, PDF] and in the motion for summary judgement [motion, PDF]. Judge Beryl Howell granted the motion, basing his decision solely on the fact that al-Dahab had willfully and materially lied during his naturalization process. Judge Howell determined that al-Dahab had lied about his prior marriages, his traveling before applying for naturalization and that al-Dahab had represented himself as being a US citizen in the past and had denied it on his application.

The US campaign against al-Qaeda [JURIST commentary] and affiliates has been ongoing since the September 11, 2001 attack on the New York City World Trade Center. In March, the US conducted airstrikes against al-Qaeda targets in Yemen. Also in March, al-Qaeda member Ibrahim Suleiman Adnan Harun was convicted [JURIST report] on federal terrorism charges for his involvement in the deaths of US servicemen in Afghanistan. In 2015 a US Court of Appeals struck down [JURIST report] the conviction of al-Qaeda member Ali Hamza Ahmad Suliman Al Bahlul, because conspiracy was not a war crime for which Bahlul could be tried by a military commission.