Alleged Terrorist Handed £250,000 in Legal Aid: Justice or Not?
According to several news outlets, an alleged ‘Jihadi terrorist’, who is currently fighting deportation form the UK, has been awarded £250,000 in legal aid handouts despite being found with instruction manuals on bombing nightclubs and airports. The question is, under the law, is it just to provide him with legal aid?
The Sun claims he reportedly came to the UK as a ‘sleeper agent’ following 9/11, pretending to have fled Jordan for fear of his life. His asylum claim was dismissed but he evaded the authorities by using a fake name.
He was also allegedly given a council house, £100,000 in benefits and was only caught once tipped to the police for unusual bank activity. After finding incriminating evidence of manuals to bomb airports and nightclubs, he was sentenced to imprisonment by Manchester Crown Court, after which he served several years.
Now on the verge of being tossed out of the country, he is fighting to remain, claiming human rights law as his advocate. This comes just as Theresa May is looking to scrap the human rights act and make way with deporting extremists.
From a legal standpoint Tory MP Philip Davies said: “It’s bad enough that we are finding it difficult to kick out somebody who may do us terrible harm, but it’s an absolute kick in the teeth to be forking out such colossal sums for his legal bills.”
The Daily mail says he has been given £253,000 in taxpayer-funded legal aid money since battling his deportation.
The current legal situation here is that if he were to be named, this would put him in danger in his home country, given his past actions and consequences in the UK, which in turn would sabotage the prospect of deportation in itself as he would have to receive asylum under human rights law. The elimination of such law would allow him to be deported regardless of the danger, if found to be a considerable danger to the UK as a terror suspect.
According to the individual’s lawyer Daniel Furner, of Birnberg Peirce: “The bulk of our costs related to demonstrating that the Home Office had been wrong to say my client would not be tortured on return to Jordan. The Home Office now accepts we were right about that.”
