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Why did rapist slip net? UK's asylum system is failing
26.11.2005
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Nov
25, - A FORMER Home Office minister today said the
shocking gang rape of a Blackpool schoolgirl was
clear evidence the UK's asylum system is failing.
Fylde MP Michael Jack said the case of Iraqi-Kurd
Awat Ahmed, who was this week found guilty of being
one of four men who attacked the 15-year-old, should
be passed to Home Secretary Charles Clarke.
The failure to deport Ahmed immediately after a
second appeal for political asylum was turned down,
enabled him to flee to Blackpool where he lived and
worked illegally. It was here in May he and three
other men gang raped the girl in a sickening attack
at a house in Caroline Street.
Mr Jack said an "overwhelmed system" was at fault
for allowing 27-year-old Ahmed to slip the net
instead of being sent back to Iraq.
He said: "We need to put together evidence of cases
like this into a dossier for the Home Secretary to
show him why there is an urgent need for failed
applicants to be removed as soon as possible before
they disappear.
"Part of the deterrent for people coming here is
they will be removed to their country of origin if
they're not a genuine refugee and in fear for their
life.
"We just don't have the resources in this country to
do what the vast majority of the public would expect
– deport someone as soon as their application has
been rejected – and that needs to be addressed."
Ahmed, who was living in Cookson Street, Blackpool,
twice failed in his attempts to be granted asylum in
Britain after arriving from Iraq in the back of a
truck in 2001.
He was stripped of his financial support, in order
to encourage a voluntary move back to his homeland,
but instead came to Blackpool from Bolton just one
month before the attack.
Mr Jack, who served as a minister in John Major's
Government in the early 1990s, added: "It's just
plain wrong that someone who went through the asylum
process and failed was still in this country.
"The authorities are so snowed under with
applications that they do not have the resources to
enforce their decisions and remove these people
immediately.
"The system is completely overwhelmed and the
Government has to look again at this."
The Home Office today admitted applicants can slip
under the radar if they refuse to leave voluntarily.
A spokeswoman said she could not comment on the
Ahmed case, but added: "If an appeal fails the
person would be expected to return home voluntarily,
for which we could provide help, and if not they
could be forcibly removed.
"Unfortunately, that cannot happen immediately
because we have to initiate removal proceedings and
there is documentation to be finalised."
* Ahmed will be sentenced in the New Year after he
was found guilty on two counts of rape. The three
other suspects are still at large.
25 November 2005
www.blackpooltoday.co.uk
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