Nine Afghans who hijacked an airplane to Britain in 2000 persuaded a judge on Wednesday that they should be granted refugee status. However, the government said it might appeal the decision, arguing that hijackers should never be rewarded -- even those fleeing the Taliban.
The men were initially jailed in Britain for the bloodless hijacking of an Afghan Boeing 727 in February 2000, nearly two years before Afghanistan's repressive Taliban regime was ousted.
Their convictions were overturned on appeal and immigration authorities ruled in 2004 that they should be allowed to stay in Britain as refugees rather than deported -- a decision which the government deliberately failed to implement, a High Court judge found Wednesday.
Unfair
"It is difficult to conceive of a clearer case of conspicuous unfairness amounting to an abuse of power," Justice Jeremy Sullivan said, ordering the government to grant the men and their families discretionary leave to stay in the country.
British Prime Minister Tony Blair was critical of the judge's decision.
"We can't have a situation in which people who hijack a plane we are not able to deport back to their country," Blair said outside his Downing Street residence before a meeting with French counterpart Dominique de Villepin.
"It is not an abuse of justice for us to order their deportation. It is an abuse of common sense, frankly, to be in a position where we can't do this."
He said that the hoped the government would be able to appeal against the judgment.
Discretionary leave allows the men and their families, whose applications for asylum have been rejected, to work and apply for benefits in Britain. The Home Office can review their status every six months, though the leave becomes indefinite after five years.
Stand off
The men hijacked the Ariana Airlines jetliner with 188 people aboard during a flight from Kabul to Mazar-e-Sharif in northern Afghanistan. They forced the crew to fly to Britain and surrendered after a four-day standoff with police at Stansted Airport, northeast of London.
Testimony during the original trial said that the men had been armed with guns and grenades and had threatened to kill passengers and crew members.
After their convictions were overturned, immigration authorities found that sending them back to Afghanistan would violate their human rights by exposing them to possible attack by members of the Taliban.
On Wednesday, Sullivan ordered the British Home Office to pay legal costs to show his "disquiet and concern" at their handling of the case.
"Lest there be any misunderstanding, the issue in this case is not whether the executive should take action to discourage hijacking, but whether the executive should be required to take such action within the law as laid down by Parliament and the courts," Sullivan said.
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
TRUMP EFFECT: The win capped one of the most dramatic turnarounds in Canadian political history after the Conservatives had led the Liberals by more than 20 points Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney yesterday pledged to win US President Donald Trump’s trade war after winning Canada’s election and leading his Liberal Party to another term in power. Following a campaign dominated by Trump’s tariffs and annexation threats, Carney promised to chart “a new path forward” in a world “fundamentally changed” by a US that is newly hostile to free trade. “We are over the shock of the American betrayal, but we should never forget the lessons,” said Carney, who led the central banks of Canada and the UK before entering politics earlier this year. “We will win this trade war and
Armed with 4,000 eggs and a truckload of sugar and cream, French pastry chefs on Wednesday completed a 121.8m-long strawberry cake that they have claimed is the world’s longest ever made. Youssef El Gatou brought together 20 chefs to make the 1.2 tonne masterpiece that took a week to complete and was set out on tables in an ice rink in the Paris suburb town of Argenteuil for residents to inspect. The effort overtook a 100.48m-long strawberry cake made in the Italian town of San Mauro Torinese in 2019. El Gatou’s cake also used 350kg of strawberries, 150kg of sugar and 415kg of
RSS