Rochdale sex offender says he was treated 'like a political football'

ONE of the Rochdale sex offenders has protested his deportation to Pakistan by claiming he is barely surviving on benefits and has been treated 'like a political football', reported the MailOnline. 

Adil Khan, 51, was told he will be sent back to Pakistan for the public good, after he was part of a gang convicted of a catalogue of serious sex offences in May 2012.

Khan and Qari Abdul Rauf, 52, will hear deportation appeals late this year. They were among nine Asian men convicted for sex offences against vulnerable girls in 2012. Police fear there were as many as 47 victims.

Since release from jail, they have fought a long legal battle against deportation, mounting multiple legal challenges and appeals, spanning seven years before 11 different judges, on the grounds that deportation would interfere with their human rights.

Khan had said he had renounced his Pakistani citizenship, meaning his exile from Britain would make him 'stateless' and should prevent his deportation.

He told an immigration hearing on Wednesday (16) they had been treated like a 'political football' and he could not afford to travel to London to hear his final appeal in June.

According to the MailOnline, failure to deport any of the gang has led to widespread anger in Rochdale, where victims realised they had been living alongside their recently-released tormentors.

A string of Home Secretaries have also come under fire after being accused of failing to act after members of the group were ordered to be deported in 2015.

Both Khan and Rauf listened via a Mirpuri translator to the First-Tier Immigration Tribunal hearing, held on a video link, on Wednesday where a final date was set to hear their appeal against deportation, the report added.

Judge Charlotte Welsh granted an application for anonymity for the lawyers representing Rauf, who is legally aided, that they should not be named in any report of the hearing, the MailOnline report added. An appeal hearing has been set for June 22.

Khan and Rauf were among four of the offenders with dual UK-Pakistani citizenship, so liable to be stripped of UK citizenship and deported, after then-home secretary, Theresa May ruled to deport them.

The pair, along with another man, Abdul Aziz, then fought and lost, a long legal battle against the deprivation order, losing a final Court of Appeal ruling in 2018.