The federal government is going back to court to try to stop a Kitchener judge from intervening in the case of Helmut Oberlander.

The appeal of a ruling by Justice Robert Reilly was announced yesterday by Jean-Pierre Morin, spokesman for Citizenship and Immigration Canada.

The government's appeal was to be filed today for a proposed hearing in March.

Ottawa stripped Oberlander of his citizenship in 2001 after a court found he lied about his wartime service as an interpreter with a Nazi death squad, in entering Canada in 1954.

Reilly, of the Superior Court of Justice, ordered deportation proceedings halted last week in order to hear a constitutional challenge launched by Oberlander, 79, of Waterloo.

But Ottawa contends the case rightly belongs to the Federal Court, which generally looks after citizenship matters and is also considering an Oberlander challenge.

Eric Hafemann, Oberlander's lawyer, had been expecting Ottawa to appeal Reilly's intervention.

The move is the latest twist in a nine-year legal battle that has no end in sight.