UK: BBC editor helped at least 15 Muslim migrant criminals escape deportation
Amid disbelief that ‘chemical attacker’ was allowed to stay in Britain
BBC editor who is paid to help 15 Somalian criminals
stay in the UK quits the Beeb after shocking Mail exposé
by Mark Hookham and Sam Merriman, Daily Mail, February 3, 2024:
A BBC editor was hired as an expert witness to help at least 15 Somalian criminals fight deportation – including a vile offender who sexually attacked a deaf teenage girl.
Last year, The Mail on Sunday exposed how Mary Harper, Africa Editor for the World Service, was paid to give expert witness evidence for Somali gang rapist Yaqub Ahmed during his five-year legal battle to stay in the UK.
Now an investigation by this newspaper can reveal Ms Harper has given expert witness evidence in a string of other controversial deportation appeals by Somali offenders – including for another three sex attackers, three drug dealers and a career criminal who spent a decade in British jails.
Following a series of questions from the MoS, the BBC last night announced that Ms Harper was leaving the Corporation, but refused to say whether she had been sacked or had quit.
In one of the most shocking cases, Ms Harper warned that a Somali man who committed a horrific sexual assault on a profoundly deaf 17-year-old girl would be at ‘severely heightened risk’ if he was sent back to Somalia because he had committed a sex crime.
A judge disagreed and threw out his appeal against deportation. Astonishingly, this newspaper has discovered that, 16 months later, the 29-year-old attacker, who the MoS is banned from naming by a court order, has still not been kicked out of Britain and is living with relatives in a council flat.
The shocking revelations come just days after it emerged that an Afghan man currently on the run after a horrific chemical attack was granted asylum despite having a conviction for sexual assault.
Ms Harper’s extensive work as an expert witness last night plunged the BBC into an impartiality row.
Tory deputy chairman Rachel Maclean MP said she was ‘flabbergasted’ at the number of immigration cases Ms Harper had been involved in and demanded the Corporation review its guidelines.
‘What are the families of those affected by these criminals thinking when a BBC employee is giving evidence to say they should stay in the country?,’ she said. ‘To me there is something very wrong with that.’
Our exclusive investigation also reveals how:
Ms Harper suggested that a violent criminal convicted of assault and robbery would be at risk from terrorists in Somalia as his tattooed arms would be seen as a ‘sign of homosexuality’;
She claimed another prolific criminal would face ‘great difficulties’ in Somalia due to a lack of family and financial support – despite the court hearing the offender’s mother had enjoyed three holidays to Dubai;
Ms Harper warned a third criminal’s long history of offending in the UK – 39 convictions for 80 crimes over 17 years – would result in him being shunned by his clan if he returned to Somalia;
A Somali who flooded a Hampshire town with drugs was allowed to stay in the UK after Ms Harper gave evidence. Ahmed Ali Jama, 29, claimed he would be in danger in Somalia because his father and sister are popular singers;
Judges twice questioned Ms Harper’s objectivity and in a third case branded some of her evidence ‘speculative and not supported by any broad range of views’;
In another tribunal, the Home Office said information she had mistakenly attributed to a terrorist source was ‘in fact obtained from an office cleaner’.
Educated at £42,000-a-year Bedales School in Hampshire, Ms Harper became a BBC Africa Editor in 2009. The mother of two first visited Somalia in 1994 at the height of its civil war and has written books about the nation and the Al-Shabaab terror group.
On her website, she describes herself as ‘an expert witness in Somali-related legal cases’ as well as referring to her BBC job.
Court papers reveal she has been providing expert witness evidence in immigration cases for at least a decade, and has links with Wilson Solicitors, the London law firm that represented Yaqub Ahmed during his relentless cycle of dubious human rights appeals.
Ahmed, 34, who was jailed in 2008 for raping a 16-year-old girl, was deported last August – five years after his removal was thwarted following a mutiny of virtue-signalling passengers on the same flight.
The MoS has identified 12 immigration cases in which Wilson Solicitors asked Ms Harper to either write a report or give evidence in court.
Despite repeated requests, Ms Harper and the BBC have refused to disclose how much she has been paid to give evidence. Legal sources say expert witnesses can be paid up to £2,500 for producing a report in legal-aid-funded cases.
Seven of the 15 Somali criminals whose cases involved evidence from Ms Harper were successful in their appeals. The Home Office last night refused to say how many of the others have been deported.
In 2019, Ms Harper provided evidence during a bid to block the deportation of a Somali who had been jailed for seven years for an appalling sex attack….
================================================================================
In front of the children:
Ex is said to have cut mother’s throat
translated from “Vor den Kindern: Ex soll Mutter die Kehle durchgeschnitten haben,” by Bianca Weiner and Sebastian Prengel, Bild, February 6, 2024 (thanks to Medforth):
Siegen/Emmerich (NRW) – With outrageous brutality and cold-bloodedness he cut his ex-girlfriend’s throat. Unbelievable: Her two small children (1 month and 5 years old at the time) must have witnessed the crime. As of today, Omar A. (24) has to answer for murder before the Siegen regional court.
The 24-year-old listened to the reading of the indictment in a good mood and grinning. With a black beard and a turban, he sat next to his defender.
Because Omar A. repeatedly mistreated his partner, Carina K. (23) separated from him several times and yet returned to him many times. But when they went to the Netherlands with their children in August last year, they were actually no longer a couple.
On the way back, on the night of August 14th, an acquaintance of the alleged perpetrator rode in the family car. For a smoke break, they drove off the A3 motorway near Emmerich-Elten and stopped on a dirt road.
According to the prosecution, the following happened there: The Syrian asked the mother of his children to satisfy the other man orally. When she wanted to follow the request and kneel in front of the man, Omar brutally cut the 23-year-old’s throat from behind with a knife. That’s why the public prosecutor’s office accuses Omar A. of murder out of treachery.
The unbelievable: The two small children had to witness everything.
Then both men got into the car with the children and drove away. They simply left the dying Carina lying on the path at the edge of the forest and dying in agony.
A farmer who has his farm nearby found the dead woman in a pool of blood in Emmerich-Elten the next morning around 9 a.m. There was a small baby hat next to the body.
A farmer reports how he found the body of Carina, who had been killed, on a dirt road.
He is said to have massacred his girlfriend, but the accusation is only manslaughter.
On the same day, the NRW police reported a search for a missing person (23) in Siegen, about 200 kilometers away. They feared an act of violence. Hundreds of police had combed through a forest and searched for the woman from the air using helicopters. Then, just hours later, it turned out that the dead woman found near the Dutch border was the wanted Carina K.
Her ex-boyfriend Omar A. was arrested on the same day and has been in custody ever since. He denies the crime. Many witnesses should be heard in the proceedings and experts should have their say. A verdict is expected in mid-May.
No comments:
Post a Comment