Ambika bhardwaj
Published On: January 15, 2022 at 18:13 IST
Novak Djokovic was noted to be back in immigration detention on Saturday after his legal challenge to avert deportation from Australia for being unvaccinated against COVID-19 was transferred to a higher Court.
A hearing in Federal Court has been organised for Sunday, the day before the men’s No. 1 tennis player and nine-time Australian Open champion is set to begin his title defence at the year’s first Grand Slam tennis tournament.
A lane behind the building where Djokovic’s lawyers are based was closed down by the police, and two vehicles exited the building around mid-afternoon local time on Saturday.
Djokovic was detained again, according to the Australian Associated Press. He was held in a hotel near downtown Melbourne for four nights before being released last Monday after winning a procedural court challenge to his first visa cancellation.
On Friday, Immigration Minister Alex Hawke revoked the 34-year-old Serb’s visa, which had been blocked when he arrived at a Melbourne airport on January 5.
Returning to Australia after being deported from Australia can result in a three-year ban, though this can be waived based on the circumstances.
Djokovic admitted that his travel statement was inaccurate because it did not reveal that he had visited multiple countries in the two weeks preceding his advent in Australia.
However, inaccurate travel information was not the reason due to which Hawke made a decision that deporting Djokovic was in the best interests of the public.
On Saturday, his lawyers lodged documents in Court that disclosed Hawke had stated that “Djokovic is interpreted by some as a talisman of an anti-vaccination sentiment.”