UK PM seeks options to deport Pakistan-origin rape convict
LONDON: British Prime Minister Keir Starmer has asked the home secretary to review the case of a Rochdale grooming gang ringleader Shabir Ahmed amid calls for the law to be changed to allow him to be deported.
Shabir, 73, known to his victims as “Daddy”, was released from prison on Thursday, after serving 14 years since his conviction in 2012 for multiple rape and sexual offences against young girls. He moved to the UK from Gujarat in Pakistan in the late 70s, when he was 14 years old. He holds no Pakistani identity papers, revoked his Pakistan nationality decades ago to obtain the UK citizenship.
He is understood to have been freed on licence and told he must initially live at a bail hostel which is staffed 24 hours and wear an electronic GPS tag, so will not be allowed to his last known address on Windsor Avenue in Oldham and is subject to an “exclusion zone”, meaning he cannot go to parts of Rochdale.
He has been stripped of his British citizenship, leaving him with no status. He is unable to be deported due to a 1971 law that forbids the removal of a small group of Commonwealth citizens who arrived in the UK more than 50 years ago.
Downing Street said the premier had asked Shabana Mahmood to consider options for ensuring Ahmed’s deportation, describing his case as “particularly heinous”.
In a statement, it said: “We are absolutely clear that where foreign nationals commit offences in the UK we will do everything in our power to remove them.”
Ahmed’s impending release brought calls for action from politicians, including the likely next prime minister Andy Burnham – who called for senior ministers to “review all possible options” for his deportation.
In the Commons, Rochdale Labour MP Paul Waugh called for Ahmed to be deported, saying the Foreign Office “should do everything possible within their power” to make sure that happens.
Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch said her party would attempt to amend the Government’s Immigration and Asylum Bill “to close the loophole so that this man can be deported immediately”.
Ahmed was sentenced to 19 years in prison at Liverpool Crown Court in 2012 as one of nine men convicted of offences against five girls.
A senior Pakistani government official has told Geo News exclusively that Shabbir Ahmed is a stateless person and is not a Pakistani national.
The official said Ahmed does not hold UK nationality and had revoked his Pakistani nationality many years ago. “As far as we are concerned, he is an alien,” the official added.
