The UK is dragging out its surrender and capitulation for far too long. It should just install Asghar Bukhari as Prime Minister now and be done with it.
“Afghan ‘terrorist’ is free to roam the streets of Britain as hero interpreters are abandoned to Taliban: Man who has been stripped of British citizenship is embroiled in battle to fight deportation,” by Larisa Brown and David Williams, Daily Mail, August 20, 2015
A suspected Afghan terrorist is living freely in London as former British Army translators are abandoned to face Taliban hitmen, it emerged last night.
The man had been stripped of his British citizenship over alleged links to Al Qaeda but made it back into the country.
At huge cost to the taxpayer, he is now embroiled in a legal battle to fight deportation – a process which could take months or even years.
Known only as M2, he has been put on an electronic tag and partial curfew but is otherwise free to roam the streets despite being declared a security risk.
The extraordinary case comes as the Daily Mail highlights the plight of Afghan translators who served alongside UK troops but have been refused entry into Britain. This is despite what interpreters and their supporters say is a catalogue of compelling evidence that their lives are in danger from the Taliban….
Interpreters desperate to come to the UK said it was a ‘disgrace’ that there is no place for them despite their years of loyal service. Ahmad, a father-of-two who worked for UK forces in Helmand, said: ‘It is a strange world where Britain can allow in twice a man like this who they say supports terrorists but turns its back on Afghan interpreters.
‘This man lives comfortably, safely in the UK while we are left to worry about our families, our safety, with David Cameron telling us we are not wanted.’
Rafi, a former interpreter blown-up in Afghanistan and now living in Britain, described the case as ‘extraordinary’.
The 28-year-old, who is leading the court battle to force the Government to allow interpreters in to the UK, called it a betrayal of Afghan translators and of British soldiers who lost their lives.
Details of the case came to light during a four-day hearing of the special immigration appeals commission (SIAC), where the man is appealing against a decision last month to send him back to Afghanistan.
M2 arrived in the UK as a child and had indefinite leave to remain before being awarded British citizenship in 2011. But in May last year, he was on a trip to Afghanistan when he was told Home Secretary Theresa May had decided to revoke his British citizenship.
According to an investigation by the Guardian and the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, the Government said M2 was to act as a courier for Al Qaeda. He made what the Home Office described as two suspicious trips to Afghanistan in 2013 and 2014. He claimed there were family reasons for the visits.
On the second trip, the Government claimed he planned to courier an iPhone and laptop to the terror organisation but changed his mind after being searched at Kabul airport. He gave them to his brother and a local doctor instead.
Despite being told his British passport was cancelled, M2 still had ‘indefinite leave to remain’ stamped in his Afghan passport and was able to return to the UK via Pakistan.When he arrived back in Britain he was initially placed in a detention centre but was freed at a bail hearing last December and has been living in London, wearing an electronic tag, since.
SIAC judge Mr Justice Irwin will make a judgment about the case in the coming months. The Home Office said it was inappropriate to comment while legal proceedings were continuing.
An Afghan translator shot by a Taliban sniper while serving on the frontline with UK troops said yesterday he feared he had been left to the enemy.
The 29-year-old has spent nine years working for the British but despite threats to him and his family – and a huge scar on his arm that marks him out – he claims to have been told he does not qualify to be relocated.
Married with a young son, the man – whom the Daily Mail is identifying only as Khan for security reasons – said he and colleagues were so worried about Taliban reprisals they were applying to the US for visas because Britain was threatening to turn its back on them.
The US has introduced a scheme allowing translators working for any of its Coalition partners in Afghanistan to apply for a visa to go there. ‘If the British will not help me after many years in their service then I have to look elsewhere to provide safety to my family,’ he said.
‘I have asked the British many times for relocation because the Taliban want to kill me but they simply tell me to change my telephone number, change where I live, change my routes to work.’
He said he had helped save many UK troops but was now ‘being left to their enemy’.
His family has had to move home several times because of death threats, including those made to his local mosque where a warning letter was posted calling him a ‘slave of the infidels … You will be burnt in hell’.
Khan was shot while on patrol with UK troops in 2009. ‘I felt a hard pain in my left shoulder, I was bleeding badly and my hand was numb … my arm was shattered,’ he said. ‘I have almost died helping the British … I do not understand why they will not help me now.’…
I do. They don’t want to be accused of “Islamophobia.”