It's not just Obama.
Exclusive:
Secret war on enemy within - British terror suspects quietly stripped
of citizenship… then killed by drones
27
February, 2013
The
Government has secretly ramped up a controversial programme that
strips people of their British citizenship on national security
grounds – with two of the men subsequently killed by American drone
attacks.
An
investigation by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism for The
Independent has established that since 2010, the Home Secretary,
Theresa May, has revoked the passports of 16 individuals, many of
whom are alleged to have had links to militant or terrorist groups.
Critics
of the programme warn that it allows ministers to “wash their
hands” of British nationals suspected of terrorism who could be
subject to torture and illegal detention abroad.
They
add that it also allows those stripped of their citizenship to be
killed or “rendered” without any onus on the British Government
to intervene.
At
least five of those deprived of their UK nationality by the Coalition
were born in Britain, and one man had lived in the country for almost
50 years. Those affected have their passports cancelled, and lose
their right to enter the UK – making it very difficult to appeal
against the Home Secretary’s decision. Last night the Liberal
Democrats’ deputy leader Simon Hughes said he was writing to Ms May
to call for an urgent review into how the law was being implemented.
The
leading human rights lawyer Gareth Peirce said the present situation
“smacked of mediaeval exile, just as cruel and just as arbitrary”.
Ian
Macdonald QC, the president of the Immigration Law Practitioners’
Association, described the citizenship orders as “sinister”.
“They’re
using executive powers and I think they’re using them quite
wrongly,” he said. “It’s not open government; it’s closed,
and it needs to be exposed.”
Laws
were passed in 2002 enabling the Home Secretary to remove the
citizenship of any dual nationals who had done something “seriously
prejudicial” to the UK, but the power had rarely been used before
the current government took office.
The
Bureau’s investigation has established the identities of all but
four of the 21 British passport holders who have lost their
citizenship, and their subsequent fates. Only two have successfully
appealed – one of whom has since been extradited to the US.
In
many cases those involved cannot be named because of ongoing legal
action. The Bureau has also found evidence that government officials
act when people are out of the country – on two occasions while on
holiday – before cancelling passports and revoking citizenships.
Those
targeted include Bilal al-Berjawi, a British-Lebanese citizen who
came to the UK as a baby and grew up in London, but left for Somalia
in 2009 with his close friend the British-born Mohamed Sakr, who also
held Egyptian nationality.
Both
had been the subject of extensive surveillance by British
intelligence, with the security services concerned they were involved
in terrorist activities.
Once
in Somalia, the two reportedly became involved with al-Shabaab, the
Islamist militant group with links to al-Qa’ida. Mr Berjawi was
said to have risen to a senior position in the organisation, with Mr
Sakr his “right-hand man”.
In
2010, Theresa May stripped both men of their British nationalities
and they soon became targets in an ultimately lethal US manhunt.
In
June 2011 Mr Berjawi was wounded in the first known US drone strike
in Somalia and last year he was killed by a drone strike – within
hours of calling his wife in London to congratulate her on the birth
of their first son.
His
family have claimed that US forces were able to pinpoint his location
by monitoring the call he made to his wife in the UK. Mr Sakr, too,
was killed in a US airstrike in February 2012, although his British
origins have not been revealed until now.
Mr
Sakr’s former UK solicitor said there appeared to be a link between
the Home Secretary removing citizenships and subsequent US actions.
“It
appears that the process of deprivation of citizenship made it easier
for the US to then designate Mr Sakr as an enemy combatant, to whom
the UK owes no responsibility whatsoever,” Saghir Hussain said.
Mr
Macdonald added that depriving people of their citizenship “means
that the British government can completely wash their hands if the
security services give information to the Americans who use their
drones to track someone and kill them.”
The
campaign group CagePrisoners is in touch with many families of those
affected. Its executive director Asim Qureshi said the Bureau’s
findings were deeply troubling for Britons from an ethnic minority
background.
“We
all feel just as British as everybody else, and yet just because our
parents came from another country, we can be subjected to an
arbitrary process where we are no longer members of this country any
more,” he said.
“I
think that’s extremely dangerous because it will speak to people’s
fears about how they’re viewed by their own government, especially
when they come from certain areas of the world.”
The
Liberal Democrat deputy leader Simon Hughes said that, while he
accepted there were often real security concerns, he was worried that
those who were innocent of Home Office charges against them and were
trying to appeal risked finding themselves in a “political and
constitutional limbo”.
“There
was clearly always a risk when the law was changed seven years ago
that the executive could act to take citizenship away in
circumstances that were more frequent or more extensive than those
envisaged by ministers at the time,” he said.
“I’m
concerned at the growing number of people who appear to have lost
their right to citizenship. I plan to write to the Home Secretary and
the Home Affairs Select Committee to ask for their assessment of the
situation, and for a review of whether the act is working as
intended.”
Ms
Peirce, a leading immigration defence lawyer, said, “British
citizens are being banished from their own country, being stripped of
a core part of their identity yet without a single word of
explanation of why they have been singled out and dubbed a risk,”
she said.
Families
are sometimes affected by the Home Secretary’s decisions. Parents
may have to choose whether their British children remain in the UK,
or join their father in exile abroad.
In
a case known only as L1, a Sudanese-British man took his four British
children on holiday to Sudan, along with his wife, who had limited
leave to remain in the UK. Four days after his departure, Theresa May
decided to strip him of his citizenship.
With
their father excluded from the UK and their mother’s lack of
permanent right to remain, the order effectively blocks the children
from growing up in Britain. At the time of the order the children
were aged between eight and 13 months.
The
judge, despite recognising their right to be brought up in Britain,
ruled that the grounds on which their father’s citizenship was
revoked “outweighed” the rights of the children.
Mr
Justice Mitting, sitting in the semi-secret Special Immigration
Appeals Commission (Siac), said: “We accept it is unlikely to be in
the best interests of the appellant’s children that he should be
deprived of his British citizenship...
“They
are British citizens, with a right of abode in the UK.
“They
are of an age when that right cannot, in practice, be enjoyed if both
of their parents cannot return to the United Kingdom.”
Yet
he added that Theresa May was “unlikely to have made that decision
without substantial and plausible grounds”.
In
another case, a man born in Newcastle in 1963 and three of his
London-born sons all lost their citizenship two years ago while in
Pakistan.
An
expert witness told Siac that those in the family’s situation may
be at risk from the country’s government agencies and militant
groups. Yet Siac recently ruled that the UK “owed no obligation”
to those at risk of “any subsequent act of the Pakistani state or
of non-state actors [militant groups] in Pakistan”.
The
mother, herself a naturalised British citizen, now wants to return
here in the interests of her youngest son, who has developmental
needs. Although 15, he is said to be “dependent upon [his mother
and father] for emotional and practical support”.
His
mother claimed he “has no hope of education in Pakistan’. But the
mother has diabetes and mobility problems that mean she “does not
feel able to return on her own, with or without [her son].”
Mr
Justice Mitting ruled that the deprivation of citizenship of the
family’s father had “undoubtedly had an impact on the private and
family life of his wife and youngest son, both of whom remain British
citizens”. But he added that the father posed such a threat to
national security that the “unavoidable incidental impact” on his
wife and youngest son was “justifiable”, and dismissed the
appeal.
A
Home Office spokeswoman said: “Citizenship is a privilege not a
right. The Home Secretary has the power to remove citizenship from
individuals where she considers it is conducive to the public good.
An individual subject to deprivation can appeal to the courts.”
She
added: “We don’t routinely comment on individual deprivation
cases.”
Asked
whether intelligence was provided to foreign governments, she said:
“We don’t comment on intelligence issues. Drone strikes are a
matter for the states concerned.”
Mahdi
Hashi: From Camden care worker to US prisoner
Mahdi
Hashi, a former care worker from Camden in north London, was well
known to Britain’s security services – in fact they tried to
recruit him when he was 19.
Now
23, Mr Hashi is in a high-security US prison having been secretly
“rendered” from the African state of Djibouti last year.
Mr
Hashi claims that before being sent to the US on charges of working
with the terrorist group al-Shabaab he witnessed torture in an
African prison, before being handed over to the CIA and forced to
sign a confession.
Despite
Mr Hashi being brought up in the UK, the British Government has
washed its hands of him, having stripped him of his citizenship
shortly before he disappeared in Somalia last summer.
His
UK family say that when they lost contact with their son they
approached the Foreign Office for help. But they were told by
officials that they could not provide assistance because the Home
Secretary had issued an order depriving him of his British
citizenship.
It
was only five months later, when he re-appeared in the US, that they
were able to contact him again. The family’s lawyer, Saghir
Hussain, said at the time: “The UK Government has a lot of
explaining to do. What role did it play in getting him kidnapped,
held in secret detention and renditioned to the US?”
The
case has led to allegations that Britain may have conspired with the
US to strip Mr Hashi of his citizenship knowing he would be arrested
in Africa. They have no further obligations towards him and can avoid
potentially embarrassing questions about his treatment before his
rendition.
The
case is all the more bizarre as Mr Hashi gave an interview to The
Independent in 2009 when he alleged that MI5 had attempted to recruit
him. He claimed that on a previous trip to Africa he was held for 16
hours in a cell at Djibouti airport, and that when he was returned to
the UK he was met by an MI5 agent who told him his terror-suspect
status would remain until he agreed to work for the Security Service.
He alleges he was to be given the job of informing on his friends by
encouraging them to talk about jihad.
Mohamed
Sakr: The British car valet killed by a drone strike
In
February last year, international agencies in Africa reported that
“four foreign Islamist militants” had been killed in a drone
strike south of Somalia’s capital, a day after the country’s
Prime Minister called for foreign air strikes against the terror
group al-Shabaab.
At
the time a senior Western intelligence officer was quoted as saying
that a “very senior Egyptian was killed” in the raid, along with
three Kenyans and a Somali.
That
was technically true – but in reality the Egyptian had not even
been born in the country for which he held a passport. It would have
been more accurate to describe him as a British terror suspect who
once ran a car valeting business in London.
The
Bureau has established that the victim of the February air strike was
Mohamed Sakr, who was born and brought up in the UK before having his
citizenship revoked in September 2010 by the Home Secretary, Theresa
May.
Sakr
appears to have come to the attention of UK intelligence officials
after he visited Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Dubai in 2007. He was then
repeatedly targeted by counter-terrorism officers over a two-year
period, according to reports.
It
was this, it is alleged, that drove Sakr out of the country; he left
Britain in late 2009 for Somalia.
The
law allowing the Home Secretary to remove citizenship was in place
when Sakr left the UK, but it was not until after the Coalition came
to power that it was used in his case.
It
would be another year and a half before he was killed.
