Rochdale grooming gang ringleader Shabir Ahmed will ‘almost certainly’ lodge human rights claims to remain in Britain despite a new bid to deport him, the Conservatives have warned.
Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp said the Pakistani-born paedophile is highly likely to lodge – and win – appeals brought under the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR).
It would render futile new efforts by Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood to change immigration laws to deport the 73-year-old child rapist.
Ms Mahmood is in the final stages of preparing legal amendments which bar Ahmed’s removal and also faces significant diplomatic hurdles as Pakistan says it will not accept him.
Mr Philp said: ‘Even if these legal changes are made, Ahmed will almost certainly file claims under the ECHR.
‘He is likely to use Article 8, the right to private and family life, and Article 3, which prevents someone being removed to somewhere they may face ill-treatment.
‘Previous cases suggest any such claims will have a good chance of success.
‘That’s why the Conservatives have a real plan to leave the ECHR and deport all foreign criminals.
Shabir Ahmed has previously used the ECHR in a bid to have his convictions overturned
‘But Labour sadly does not support doing this.’
Ahmed has previously used the ECHR in a bid to have his convictions overturned.
He lodged a claim with the European Court of Human Rights in 2014, two years after he was handed a 22-year sentence for multiple rape and sexual offences against young girls.
In an application to the Strasbourg court his lawyers claimed ‘the jury had been biased against him, because the information had been (allegedly) disseminated by the jury to far-right groups that had been hostile to the defendants’, an official summary of the claim shows.
He also alleged the trial had been unfair because ‘all 12 jurors had been white; and that his counsel had not been allowed to cross-examine some of the witnesses against him’.
Ahmed also complained of various other violations of his human rights, including police ‘anti-Muslim prejudice’.
His Strasbourg application also used Article 8 in a bid to prove that ‘his private and family life had not been respected by the trial and the media coverage of it’, the summary adds.
In addition, he claimed he had been ‘discriminated against on grounds of race and religion’.
However, Strasbourg judges declared his claims inadmissible in 2016.
Ms Mahmood is set to unveil amendments to the Immigration Act 1971 which currently exempt people from deportation if they arrived here before 1973 and have lived in the UK for at least five years.
It is not yet known whether Ms Mahmood will bring in the reforms as an amendment to the Immigration and Asylum Bill, which was laid before Parliament last month, or through a different legal mechanism which may allow swifter changes.
Ahmed was freed from jail last week after serving 14 years of his sentence.
He has already been stripped of his British citizenship and is reported to have also renounced his Pakistani citizenship.
A government source said: ‘We are confident that there is a fix to deal with the domestic side of it but it is now down to the FCDO [Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office] negotiations with Pakistan that will decide if [Ahmed] stays in the UK.’
Pakistan is insisting it will not accept Ahmed, with officials describing the British Government’s efforts to send Ahmed back as ‘arrogance and a colonial mindset’.
Its unwillingness to comply could lead the British Government to impose penalties on the Commonwealth country, such as reducing or stopping the issuing of UK visas to its nationals.
Another option could be withholding the annual £50million in foreign aid currently paid by Britain to Pakistan.
A senior Pakistani government official told The Telegraph: ‘How is he our national when he is actually not our national? This is arrogance and a colonial mindset.
‘It is unacceptable to us.’
‘Pakistan cannot be railroaded into agreeing to terms and conditions that are suitable only to the UK.’
Labour MP Jim McMahon, who represents a constituency in Oldham where some of the abuse occurred, called for a change in the law last week and said the 1971 legislation ‘was not designed to give a free pass to a child rapist’.
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