Lawyers for deported family accuse Home Office of misleading court
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Lawyers for an Afghan family deported to Germany last week are launching a legal challenge against the Home Office, claiming it misled the High Court over what would happen to them outside Britain.
The Ahmadi family were flown to Munich after lawyers asking the High Court to keep them in Britain were told that the family had been given "humanitarian status" and were unlikely to be returned to Afghanistan.
But supporters say the Ahmadis – who were seized last month from a mosque where they had sought sanctuary – have been given no special status and face another deportation within months, once the German authorities decide Afghanistan is officially safe for them to return. Their lawyer, Pierre Makhlouf, said the Home Office also gave assurances they would be housed in a community and their children allowed to attend school, but they have been kept in detention centres.
He is starting a new legal challenge to have the Ahmadis returned to Britain because the deportation was based on inaccurate information. "Either the Home Office deliberately misled the court when giving assurances as to how the family would be treated, or they were given information from the German authorities that was wrong or that they did not check out," Mr Makhlouf said.
The family are being helped in Germany by the International Human Rights Association, whose chairman, Viraj Mendis, was deported from Britain in 1988 after seeking sanctuary in a Manchester church. He said last night that Germany immigration authorities planned to deport all asylum-seekers from Afghanistan within months once they could argue it was safe to return. "The Home Office allege that they have humanitarian status and do not have to go through the asylum process. It was a misleading statement at best and at worst it was an outright lie," he said.
Farid and Feriba Ahmadi and their two children were forcibly removed by police from a mosque at Lye, West Midlands, where they had taken refuge after living in the community for more than a year. They were deported to Germany because it was their first port of call in Europe after fleeing the Taliban regime in 2000.
A Home Office spokeswoman said: "We are confident that the Home Office has acted within UK and international law in this case and if the family decide to bring a new legal challenge our decisions will be upheld.
"There is no question that we tried to mislead the court. We passed on information to the court in good faith that we were given by the German authorities."
Fariba Ahmadi is said to have suffered a number of psychological breakdowns.