By Staff Reporter
ISLAMABAD: British officials have opened talks with the government of Pakistan over deporting Shabir Ahmed, the convicted ringleader of the Rochdale grooming gang, who walked out of prison this week after serving roughly half of a 19-year sentence for the rape and sexual exploitation of children, according to the BBC.
Ahmed, 73, left custody on Thursday and has been placed in staffed accommodation under strict supervision, including an electronically monitored GPS tag, the BBC reported. He is barred from returning to his last known address in Oldham and is subject to an exclusion zone that keeps him out of parts of Rochdale, where the abuse took place. The Home Office has said any violation of those conditions will send him back to prison immediately.
His release has reopened one of the most painful chapters in recent British criminal history, and has thrust an obscure, decades-old immigration statute into the center of a national debate over how the country handles foreign nationals convicted of the gravest crimes.
Ahmed was one of nine men convicted in 2012 of offenses against children as part of what became known as the Rochdale grooming gang, a group that police believe exploited as many as 50 girls, some as young as 12, in the town’s Heywood area. The men supplied their victims with alcohol and drugs before subjecting them to abuse above local takeaway restaurants. Ahmed himself was found guilty of two counts of rape, aiding and abetting rape, sexual assault, and trafficking for the purposes of sexual exploitation.
At sentencing, Judge Gerald Clifton told the court that the victims had been treated “as though they were worthless and beyond any respect” because they did not share the gang’s community or religion. Greater Manchester Police said at the time that it found no racial or cultural motivation behind the crimes, though a later independent review concluded that police and local authorities had committed “serious multiple failures” by not acting on repeated warnings.
Ahmed came to the United Kingdom in the late 1960s and, at the time of his conviction, held both British and Pakistani citizenship. The courts stripped him of his British passport after he was jailed, and officials had long expected he would be deported to Pakistan once his sentence concluded. He now holds only Pakistani nationality.
That expectation collided this week with a legal obstacle few outside government circles had anticipated. Victims of the gang were told that a provision in the Immigration Act 1971 shields any Commonwealth citizen who arrived in Britain before 1973 and had lived in the country for at least five years from removal. The law, more than half a century old, applies to Ahmed and has effectively blocked his deportation despite his loss of British citizenship.
The government is now examining whether that provision could be amended through the Immigration and Asylum Bill, legislation already moving through Parliament, according to the BBC. Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has directed the home secretary to review Ahmed’s case in light of mounting political pressure to close the loophole.
Even if Parliament changes the law, ministers would still need Pakistan’s cooperation to carry out the deportation — a step that has proven difficult in comparable cases. Pakistan has previously declined to accept two of Ahmed’s co-defendants in the same grooming gang case, Qari Abdul Rauf and Adil Khan, both of whom lost their British citizenship in 2018 but remain in the UK. Reports have also suggested Pakistan could resist taking Ahmed back on the grounds that he had previously renounced his Pakistani citizenship, a complication that would further muddy an already difficult diplomatic negotiation.
A Downing Street spokesperson said the government had “raised this issue with our counterparts in Islamabad” and was “committed to doing everything possible to deport foreign national offenders.” The spokesperson added that removal “necessarily involves the agreement of the receiving country, which has not always been possible,” but said officials were “working across government to explore all possible options in this case.” Asked about the timeline, the spokesperson called it “clearly a complex case with implications beyond this specific incident,” while maintaining that the UK would “do everything in our power to remove” Ahmed.
The political stakes are heightened by the fact that Starmer is serving in a caretaker capacity. He announced his resignation last month, and Andy Burnham, the former mayor of Greater Manchester who returned to Parliament through a by-election last month, is the frontrunner and currently the only declared candidate to succeed him, with a transition expected by July 20. Burnham has been among the most vocal public figures demanding Ahmed’s deportation.
Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch has pledged that her party will push to amend the Immigration and Asylum Bill specifically to close the legal loophole that shielded Ahmed. Shadow home secretary Chris Philp went further, suggesting the government should consider financial leverage if Pakistan refuses to cooperate. “If a British citizen commits a criminal offence somewhere else or is in another country illegally, of course we take back our own citizens,” Philp told GB News. “So we expect other countries, like Pakistan, to do the same when the boot is on the other foot.” Philp has floated cutting foreign aid to Pakistan as one possible response.
Paul Waugh, the Labour MP who represents Rochdale, was among the lawmakers who called Ahmed’s continued presence in Britain unacceptable, describing him as a “depraved paedophile” who should have been deported to Pakistan years ago.
For Ahmed’s victims, the legal and diplomatic wrangling has done little to ease the anxiety of his return to the community, even under supervision. Several described feeling frightened and unsafe following his release. One victim, identified only as Ruby and supported by the Maggie Oliver Foundation — a survivor advocacy organization founded by a former police detective who helped expose grooming gang failures — said she feared for her own safety and that of her children.
Copyright © 2021 Independent Pakistan | All rights reserved
