Pakistan Refuses to Accept Deportation of Rochdale Grooming Gang Leader
Islamabad — Pakistan has refused to accept the deportation of Shabir Ahmed, the Pakistan-born leader of a Rochdale grooming gang who was convicted of numerous child sexual abuse offenses in Britain.
The dispute comes after British Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper indicated that the government could consider sanctions or other measures against countries that refuse to accept the return of their nationals convicted of crimes in the United Kingdom.
Speaking before the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee, Cooper said the British government was prepared to use “all possible levers.” She noted that the threat of sanctions had previously helped persuade several countries to accept foreign offenders facing deportation from Britain.
Pakistan is expected to receive about 155 million pounds in British foreign aid over the next three years, according to figures cited by British news outlets.
Tahir Andrabi, a spokesperson for Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry, said Thursday that Islamabad would not accept Ahmed.
Reports have also claimed that Pakistan sought the extradition of two political dissidents living in Britain in exchange for accepting his return.
Ahmed was sentenced to 22 years in prison in 2012 after being convicted of 30 offenses involving the rape and sexual exploitation of children. He served about 14 years before being released earlier this month.
British authorities revoked his citizenship in 2016 in preparation for his eventual deportation, and his victims were told that he would be removed from the country after completing his sentence.
However, Ahmed reportedly cannot currently be deported because of protections under Britain’s Immigration Act of 1971. The provision applies to certain Commonwealth citizens who arrived in the country before 1973 and had lived there for at least five years.
The Rochdale case became one of Britain’s most prominent investigations into organized child sexual exploitation and intensified scrutiny of how police, local authorities and other institutions handled reports of abuse.
A privately funded parliamentary inquiry into organized child sexual exploitation has estimated that hundreds of thousands of girls may have been subjected to rape, trafficking, torture and other forms of abuse over several decades.
The report said many offenders in the cases it examined were of Pakistani Muslim heritage and accused British institutions of failing to protect victims or respond adequately to the abuse. (Source: IANS)
