AFGHAN HIJACKERS WILL LIVE IN BRITAIN

AFGHAN HIJACKERS WILL LIVE IN BRITAIN

Jul 13 2004


Judge rules they're in danger at home

By Alexandra Williams


NINE Afghans who hijacked a packed plane to get into Britain have won the right to live here.

An angry backlash is expected after a judge decided that, although they are not entitled to asylum, they cannot return to their own country on human rights grounds.

The Home Office said: "It's a one-up, one-down. The judge said we were right in not giving asylum but ruled we cannot send them back to Afghanistan.

"We have to let them stay but we are appealing against this."

The men, who opposed the Taliban, hijacked an Afghan jet at Kabul airport in February 2000 and forced it to fly to Stansted airport in Essex.

They were armed with four guns, two hand grenades and a knife and threatened to kill some of the 173 people on board and destroy the plane unless they were allowed to live in Britain. After four days - Britain's longest airport siege - they surrendered. They did not deny taking over the plane but claimed they had acted under duress.

The hijackers said they were in fear of their lives from the Taliban.

After the siege, 74 of the passengers on board, some of them the men's relatives, asked for refugee status. Of those two families were allowed to stay.

In January 2002, an Old Bailey found the men guilty of hijacking, possessing guns and explosives and false imprisonment and they were jailed for up to five years each. But in May last year, the Court of Appeal ruled their convictions were unsafe because the judge had made an error in law in summing up and could have misled the jury. They were freed.

The case cost taxpayers nearly &L&30million - one of the most expensive battles in our legal history.

The Home Office was to deport them last year but the men appealed.

Their appeal, which went before the Immigration Appellate Authority in London in April, has pushed up the legal costs even more. And their continuing presence in Britain has been a huge embarrassment for the Government.

Their lawyer has refused to talk about the case which was held behind closed doors with a security guard posted to keep the public out.

But after repeated inquiries to Rachel Garstang's offices at Hammersmith Law Centre, West London, she eventually emailed the Daily Mirror to say: "We are not speaking to the press about these cases."