UK PM seeks legal options to deport Pakistan-origin sex offender Shabir Ahmed

LONDON: British Prime Minister Keir Starmer has asked Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood to review the case of Shabir Ahmed, a convicted Rochdale grooming gang ringleader, as pressure grows in the UK for legal changes that could allow his deportation.

Ahmed, 73, was released from prison on Thursday after serving 14 years following his 2012 conviction for multiple rape and other sexual offences against young girls. He was known to his victims as Daddy. He moved to Britain from Gujarat in Pakistan in the late 1970s when he was 14.

He was sentenced to 19 years in prison by Liverpool Crown Court in 2012 as one of nine men convicted over offences involving five girls. Following his release, he is understood to have been freed on licence and instructed to initially live at a 24-hour staffed bail hostel. He is also required to wear an electronic GPS tag, cannot return to his last known address on Windsor Avenue in Oldham, and is subject to an exclusion zone barring him from parts of Rochdale.

Citizenship and deportation issue

Ahmed has been stripped of British citizenship, leaving him without legal status. However, he cannot currently be deported because of a 1971 law that prevents the removal of a small category of Commonwealth citizens who arrived in the UK more than 50 years ago.

Downing Street said Starmer had asked Mahmood to examine possible routes to ensure Ahmed’s deportation, describing the case as particularly heinous. In a statement, it said “We are absolutely clear that where foreign nationals commit offences in the UK we will do everything in our power to remove them.”

His impending release prompted calls from British politicians for government action. Andy Burnham urged senior ministers to review all possible options for deporting Ahmed. In the House of Commons, Rochdale Labour MP Paul Waugh also called for Ahmed’s removal, saying the Foreign Office should do everything within its power to secure that outcome.

Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch said her party would seek to amend the government’s Immigration and Asylum Bill to close what she called a loophole so that Ahmed could be deported immediately.

Pakistani official says Ahmed is not a Pakistani national

A senior Pakistani government official said Ahmed is a stateless person and is not a Pakistani national. The official said Ahmed does not hold UK nationality and had given up his Pakistani nationality many years ago in order to obtain British citizenship.

The official added "As far as we are concerned, he is an alien."