UK has deported eight offenders to Afghanistan since Taliban takeover
Data obtained exclusively from the Home Office shows at least one deportee had been serving a sentence of less than six months
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At least one person serving a jail sentence of less than six months has been deported by the UK to Afghanistan since August 2021, when the Taliban took control of the country.
They were among eight offenders sent by the Home Office to Afghanistan in that time, according to records obtained by Hyphen through a Freedom of Information request. One of the deportations took place on a commercial airline in August 2021 as the Taliban closed in on power, just days before the Tory government’s chaotic evacuation of hundreds of UK nationals and Afghans who had worked for Britain and its allies.
The Home Office refused to specify the lower-level crimes for which people had been deported, but offences that attract a sentence of less than six months include theft, common assault and minor drugs offences.
Others among the eight were in jail for more serious crimes. At least one was a convicted rapist.
The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office has advised against all travel to Afghanistan since the Taliban took power, and the UK has not had diplomatic relations with the country in that time.
It comes after the Home Office, overseen by Labour minister Yvette Cooper, this week committed to publishing the nationalities of 19,000 foreign national offenders by the end of this year.
Zoe Gardner, a former policy manager at the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants, said deporting people there was “obviously unsafe”. “Our criminal justice system should treat all people equally regardless of ethnicity or where they happen to have been born,” she added.
So-called foreign national offenders may have grown up in the UK and consider themselves British, but be unable to provide “evidence of British nationality”, according to research published by the Prison Reform Trust. This group could include British-born children of immigrants, asylum seekers and trafficking victims. Foreign nationals are eligible for deportation if they are convicted of a crime in the UK and given a custodial sentence of any length.
At least one other person contained in the data released to Hyphen received a sentence of between 13 and 24 months, at least one was jailed for more than two years, and at least one was serving an “indeterminate” sentence without a release date. The offences committed by the deportees included rape, violence offences and “other offences”. The Home Office refused to provide exact numbers of people within each sentencing category other than “less than five”, as it said they could potentially be identified.
All eight were “compliant returns”, according to the Home Office, and were flown to Afghanistan by commercial airlines. Foreign national offenders can be released up to 18 months early and apply for a resettlement grant of up to £1,500 if they cooperate with efforts to deport them. Enforced returns to Afghanistan were suspended in 2021.
Daniel Sohege, director of human rights consultancy Stand For All, said “compliant returns” were often cases where the Home Office “tells people that, if they do not leave within a set amount of time on their own, then they will be detained and forcibly deported”.
The Home Office would not say whether it was standard practice to deport foreign national offenders to countries that the UK does not have diplomatic relations with, whether it had engaged in discussions with the Taliban government over the return of foreign national offenders, and how the UK could ensure that foreign national offenders returned to Afghanistan would not be at risk of harm.
A Home Office spokesperson said: “Despite any barriers we face, we are resolute in our commitment to keep our communities safe and deport those who abuse our hospitality.”
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