LONDON: British Prime Minister Keir Starmer has asked the Home Secretary to review the case of Shabir Ahmed, ringleader of a Rochdale grooming gang, amid calls for the law to be changed to allow his deportation.
Shabir, 73, known to his victims as “Dad,” was released from prison on Thursday, after serving 14 years since his conviction in 2012 for multiple rapes and sexual crimes against girls. He moved to the UK from Gujarat in Pakistan in the late 1970s, when he was 14 years old. He has no Pakistani identity documents and revoked his Pakistani nationality decades ago to obtain British citizenship.
It is understood he was released on license and told he must initially live in a bail hostel which is staffed 24 hours a day and uses an electronic GPS tag, so he will not be allowed to go to his last known address on Windsor Avenue in Oldham and is subject to an “exclusion zone”, meaning he cannot go to parts of Rochdale.
He has been stripped of his British citizenship, leaving him without status. He cannot be deported because of a 1971 law that prohibits the removal of a small group of Commonwealth citizens who arrived in the UK more than 50 years ago.
Downing Street said the prime minister had asked Shabana Mahmood to consider options to ensure Ahmed’s deportation, describing her case as “particularly egregious”.
In a statement, he said: “We are absolutely clear that where foreign nationals commit crimes in the UK, we will do everything in our power to remove them.”
Ahmed’s imminent release sparked calls for action from politicians, including likely next Prime Minister Andy Burnham, who called on senior ministers to “review all possible options” for his deportation.
In the House of Commons, Rochdale Labor MP Paul Waugh called for Ahmed’s deportation and said the Foreign Office “should do everything in its power” to ensure that happens.
Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch said her party would seek to amend the government’s immigration and asylum bill “to close the loophole so that this man can be deported immediately.”
Ahmed was sentenced to 19 years in prison at Liverpool Crown Court in 2012 as one of nine men convicted of crimes against five girls.
A senior Pakistani government official told PakGazette News exclusively that Shabbir Ahmed is a stateless person and is not a Pakistani citizen.
The official said Ahmed does not have British nationality and had revoked his Pakistani nationality many years ago. “As far as we’re concerned, he’s an alien,” the official added.
