Sex offenders bashed at Christmas Island detention centreThe wave of Kiwis held on Christmas Island 
A man who has lived in Australia since he was a child says he faces a choice between indefinite detention and certain death in Syria after his residency was revoked.
Ahmed Mahmoud is one of about 200 convicted criminals being held in immigration detention on Christmas Island and facing deportation after being stripped of their visas on character grounds. 
The 24-year-old is believed to be one of the first to face deportation to Syria since war erupted there in 2011.
Mr Mahmoud served three years jail for assaulting a man outside Melbourne's Crown Casino and could now be held behind bars indefinitely if he is not deported. 
"I'm stuck in the middle," Mr Mahmoud told Fairfax Media from the Christmas Island Immigration Detention Centre. 
"Do you sit in detention for life or do you go to a country where you know you are going to die?"
Adding to his distress, Mr Mahmoud said he called the Syrian consulate in Sydney and was told he would be drafted into dictator Bashar Al-Assad's army for national service if did travel back to Syria. 
The United Nations says more than 250,000 people have been killed in Syria since the civil war broke out in 2011, while 6.5 million people have been displaced and 4.2 million have fled the country.
"There's is no Syria anymore - there is just fire and bombs," his mother, Rawaa Mawas, said.
Miss Mawas said she could not sleep because she feared for her son's safety and pleaded with Immigration Minister Peter Dutton to intervene.
"I don't want anything else from this life; just let him come back to me," she said.

'Character test'
Mr Mahmoud moved from Lebanon to Australia with his three younger brothers in 2005, when he was 13, to live with Miss Mawas in Melbourne's northern suburbs.
He said that despite growing up in Lebanon, they travelled on Syrian passports because their dual-national father was in Syria at the time.
At age 16, the young migrant applied for Australian citizenship, but failed the citizenship test because his English was still poor and he misunderstood the questions.
In 2011, Mr Mahmoud was sentenced to three years' jail for his part in what a judge described as a "callous and brutal" assault on a man outside Melbourne's Crown Casino.
He was released in   March 2014, and in   October that year Mr Mahmoud's residency was revoked on character grounds and he was immediately detained.
Mr Mahmoud has been behind bars since, first in Melbourne and Western Australia before finally being moved to Christmas Island last month.
The decision, made by then-immigration minister Scott Morrison, was made under section 501 of the migration act, which gives the minister the power to cancel a person's visa if they do not pass a "character test".
The law says a person fails the character test if they have a "significant criminal record", including being sentenced to 12 months or more in jail.
Despite the raging conflict in Syria, the Australian government has told Mr Mahmoud it has no legal obligation to not return him there.
A non-refoulement assessment seen by Fairfax Media says that although there is a chance Mr Mahmoud would be killed in Syria, he would be at no greater risk than anyone else in that country.
Mr Mahmoud has now applied for a protection visa, but was told a fortnight ago that a character test would again apply, meaning he would be held in immigration detention indefinitely if granted protection.
The Department of Immigration and Border Protection cancelled the visas of 580 non-citizens on character grounds last financial year, a spokeswoman said, and fewer of than five of them  were Syrian.   

Detention designed to 'crush people'
Mr Mahmoud's fiancee Danice Frichitthavong said she had grave concerns about his welfare in detention, which she said is designed to "crush people" and force them to give up on legal appeals to stay in Australia.
"I don't want him to go back to Syria but I don't want him to say in Christmas Island," Miss Frichitthavong said. "Either way it's torture."
Human rights lawyer and migration agent David Manne said the case showed a failure to strike a balance between protecting the community and protecting individuals. 
"One of the guiding principles here must be proportionality," Mr Manne, who is not acting for Mr Mahmoud, said.
"He is a person who has already served his sentence and now appears to have effectively had another sentence imposed on top of it that.
"The consequence of applying the law in this case is to result in complete and utter injustice."
Immigration Minister Peter Dutton would not comment directly on Mr Mahmoud's case, but  has said he was resolute that non-citizens with violent criminal histories would not be allowed to live in Australia. 
"People are held in detention for extended periods of time until they can be returned to their country of origin, either voluntarily or involuntarily," he said. 
Mr Dutton's department refused to say if anyone had returned or been deported to Syria after having their visa revoked on character grounds. 
Contact the reporter:patrick.hatch@fairfaxmedia.com.au, surespot username: pwhatch