Lawyers fail to halt enforced repatriations

Last-minute appeals by lawyers intent on preventing the deportation of failed Iraqi asylum seekers have failed to force the Home Office to abandon enforced repatriations.

In a late hearing on Friday, however, officials agreed they would not begin flights over this August bank holiday weekend, as previously expected.

The government was criticised by the high court judge hearing the application in London.

Mr Justice Andrew Collins did not grant an order barring the removal of the Kurdish-Iraqi asylum seeker Abbas Amin, but he observed it would be "improper" to enforce the removal of asylum seekers until a pending court of appeal ruling on the case was determined.

Last week the Home Office confirmed that it was holding 38 failed Iraqi asylum seekers at immigration centres around the country and that they would be returned to northern Iraq shortly. A department spokesman yesterday said it would "commence enforced returns as soon as practical arrangements are finalised".

Up to 7,000 Iraqis who have been denied asylum live in the United Kingdom. All have been warned they will be returned.

Human rights groups and refugee agencies have called on the government to delay the process, warning that no part of Iraq is safe from Islamist suicide bombings and violence.

One Iraqi detainee, Mostapha Kader, 31, from Sulaymaniya, northern Iraq, said last week that he had gone on hunger strike in protest at his imminent removal. "All my body is now shaking. I am not a well person," he said. "That's the best thing, I think - just to end it this way before getting my family into trouble. Are there any human rights in this country?"

He said he came to Britain in August 2000 after being threatened by Islamic groups who claimed he was a communist supporter.

About 50 other Kurdish Iraqis detained with him have also been told they will be flown from Heathrow direct to Irbil, in northern Iraq, on Sunday, he said.

Mr Kader added: "I want to go back to my country as soon as my problems are sorted out. I would love to see my family. But I never expected anything like this."

Refugee groups in Germany have warned that other countries may follow Britain's example and initiate a continent-wide clearance of Iraqi asylum seekers.

"We are concerned that other European countries might follow the British example," said a spokesman for Wadi, a German relief organisation active in northern Iraq since 1993.

"In Germany, more than 10,000 Iraqi refugees live in an awkward situation. Immigrant authorities regularly put considerable pressure on these people to force them to a 'voluntary' return to Iraq. Wadi fears a copycat effect."