There are at least 53 foreign terrorists, including ISIS jihadis, murderers, and would-be suicide bombers, that have reportedly been blocked from deportation from Britain under European human rights laws, an investigation has claimed.
According to a report from the Mail on Sunday, citing a dossier collected by top-level UK security sources, 53 foreign convicted terrorists are being prevented from being deported by Britain’s continued membership in the European Convention on Human Rights and its subsidiary court, the European Court for Human Rights.
Despite officially leaving the European Union in 2020, then-Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s government decided to remain under the jurisdiction of the European court, which is technically a separate institution from the bloc. However, critics of court have noted that it is more of a distinction without a difference as the court shares the same ‘European Quarter’ campus in Strasbourg, France, as well as having the same EU flag, and anthem.
The UK’s continued membership has become an increasingly hot-button political issue for the governing Conservative (Tory) party amid the increasing illegal migrant crisis in the English Channel and the move by the ECHR to stage a last-minute intervention last summer to block a plane containing migrants to an asylum processing centre in Rwanda, thereby throwing the government’s central deterrence plan into question.
Now, a Mail on Sunday investigation has claimed that the same European human rights laws are being used to prevent the removal of 53 foreign terrorists, including a Bangladeshi ISIS member who was convicted of trying to recruit terrorists for the radical Islamist group in Birmingham. Sensationally, his deportation was blocked under the ECHR as it would mean that he would be stripped of his free healthcare in the UK, and this would contravene his human rights.
Another example listed is Somalian national Wahbi Mohammed, who was sentenced to 17 years — but released after 13 — in prison for his role in a failed 2005 bombing attempt in London. The attack was said to be a copycat of the 7/7 bombings that had killed 52 people in the capital just two weeks prior.
Mohammed has been free to remain in the country with his lawyers successfully citing an ECHR clause that prevents deportations to countries where a criminal might face inhumane treatment.
Palestinian terrorist Fahad Mihyi, who killed a woman and injured nine others in an attack on an Israeli flight crew travelling on a Central London bus in 1978 with hand grenades and a sub-machine gun, has also reportedly used the ECHR to block his removal from the country.
According to the paper, the most common sections of the Convention to block terrorist deportations are Article 3, which prohibits deportations to countries that use torture or other inhumane treatment against prisoners, Article 5, which guarantees the right to liberty and security, and Article 8, which demands that prisoners maintain a right to private and family life.
It has been suggested that pending legislation, which is working its way through Parliament, to establish a UK Bill of Rights could be used to empower British judges to ignore the ECHR on the topic of deporting foreign terrorists. However, some have noted the left-wing bias within the British judiciary itself may render such an idea a moot point.
Indeed, British judges have a long history of blocking deportations of foreign criminals and terrorists on similarly dubious grounds themselves. For example, a deportation flight full of mostly Jamaican criminals, including a killer and a rapist, was blocked in 2020 by British judges because the migrants were temporarily refused access to mobile phones while they were being detained.
That same year, a judge in Scotland ruled that a Taliban terrorist should not be sent back to his native Afghanistan because he was suffering from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) from his time fighting Western allies — presumably including British forces — and therefore required free healthcare in Britain as he would not receive the same level of care in his homeland.
Commenting on the MoS revelations, Dr Rakib Ehsan, a security analyst for the Henry Jackson Society think tank, said: “This shows that our current laws are simply not fit for purpose.
“Article 3 was a response to the horrors of Nazism. It is appalling that it is now being exploited by foreign terrorists to remain in Britain – including those who have been linked to terror groups such as IS and Al Qaeda.”
Dr Ehsan also argued that just because a country does not have comparable standards for healthcare or mental health services to the UK should not be grounds to prevent the deportation of foreign terrorists.
Conservative MP and constitutional lawyer, Sir Bill Cash added: “Allowing foreign terrorists to remain in the UK is a monstrous attack on the human rights of the rest of the population.”
Sir Bill said that there is “no excuse” for foreign terrorists to remain in the country, saying that they “deserve no protection” under the ECHR.
“The law must be amended so it’s crystal clear that those who engage in terrorism have relinquished their right to use human rights excuses to stay here,” he said.
Follow Kurt Zindulka on Twitter here @KurtZindulka
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