Afghans denied permission to return for appeal

A family of Afghan asylum-seekers will not be allowed to return to Britain while they appeal against their deportation to Germany despite a High Court ruling that their removal was illegal.

Mr Justice Scott Baker, a High Court judge, ruled on Wednesday that the Home Secretary, David Blunkett, had acted illegally when he sent the Ahmadis back to the country where they first sought asylum.

But he stopped short of allowing the family – Farid Ahmadi, who is 33, his wife, Feriba, 25, their daughter, Hadia, six, and son, Seear, four – to be present at the appeal case in Britain. Instead, he ruled, the Ahmadis would be able to follow the case via a video link.

Mr Justice Scott Baker said yesterday: "I'm satisfied that, with the safeguards that have been offered by the Secretary of State, it is not necessary to direct the return of this family to this country for the hearing before the adjudicator.

"If, in the course of the hearing before the adjudicator, it appears to him that some further step is necessary in fairness to the claimants ... that can be considered at that stage."

In July, police made a dawn raid on a mosque in Lye, near Stourbridge in the West Midlands, where Mr and Mrs Ahmadi had sought sanctuary after their asylum applications were turned down.

On Wednesday, Mr Justice Scott Baker ruled that the couple should have been allowed to remain in Britain to challenge the decision to remove them.

Lawyers for the family had challenged the deportation on the basis that it would damage Mrs Ahmadi's mental health but Mr Blunkett decided they had "no arguable case" and that their claim was "manifestly unfounded".

The judge also granted permission to the Home Secretary to appeal against the ruling that he had acted illegally.

Yesterday, the parents said they were in a "complete state of shock" at the latest court ruling. Speaking from an accommodation centre in Bavaria, Mrs Ahmadi said: "We are all extremely upset, including the children, who are completely unsettled all over again. I feel like my mind has completely gone. Why do they [the Government] keep on doing this to us? That is the question I keep asking myself. I just want to bring my family to the place where they feel most at home."

Soraya Walton, a friend and campaigner for the family who became the legal guardian of the children while the parents were held at Harmondsworth detention centre near Heathrow, said she was deeply disappointed. "If the judge has said that the family's deportation was unlawful, why should they be prevented from coming back to the country they consider home, where their children have experienced their only secure life? These are people who have experienced only oppression in their lives.

"One moment we thought we had won and the next thing we found out was that we had lost. The family's moment of happiness has completely evaporated and they are once again in a state of deep distress," she said.

"This case shows that one man has power above every other democratic organisation in this country."

They Ahmadis left Britain on a charter flight from Heathrow to Munich on 14 August. Their solicitor claimed it cost £50,000 of public money. They arrived in Britain last summer after fleeing Afghanistan the previous year to escape persecution from the Taliban regime. Pierre Makhlouf, the family's lawyer, said Mrs Ahmadi suffered post-traumatic stress disorder after a missile struck her home in Afghanistan. Family members were killed and her husband was tortured.

The Ahmadis say they are too frightened to return to their home country. They also say they suffered from bigotry and racist treatment during their earlier, seven-month stay in Germany.

The appeal is expected to be heard later this month.

A Home Office spokeswoman said yesterday: "We are pleased we have been granted leave to appeal and we think it is a sensible decision that the family has been left in Germany to pursue the case."

A Home Office representative had argued in court that it would be unsettling for the Ahmadis to be brought back for the adjudication when they could be removed again after the case had been heard.