Wrongly deported Sudanese asylum seeker flown back to UK (The Guardian) (17 January 2020)

The Guardian reports that our client, a Sudanese asylum seeker, who was wrongly deported by the Home Office has been flown back to the UK, after his departure from Khartoum was delayed by a gunfight. The man is a non-Arab Darfuri and as such his life is at risk from the Sudanese regime. Home Office country guidance states that all non-Arab Darfuris seeking asylum in the UK should be granted refugee status. Despite evidence of his origin, after spending 11 weeks in immigration detention, the Home Office forcibly removed the client to Sudan where he was then forced to go into hiding. Duncan Lewis commissioned a report from the leading authority on the man’s tribe and the Home Office accepted that the new evidence amounted to a fresh asylum claim, conceding that the decision that led to his removal was unlawful, and agreed to fly him back to the UK. Solicitor Jamie Bell is quoted; “The Home Office had clear evidence of this man’s ethnicity but chose to ignore it. It was with great joy that we welcomed him back to Heathrow yesterday. He and his supporters had fought a 14-month battle for his return since the dreadful mistake to remove him in October 2018.”