UK court backs citizenship ban for Afghan people smugglers

Judges rule people smuggling is on same level as threats such as terrorism

Migrants boarding lorries bound for the UK in Calais, northern France. Getty Images

An Afghan people smuggler and his nephew who charged migrants £9,000 ($12,190) each to reach the UK have lost their appeal against being stripped of British citizenship.

Judges have ruled that the Home Secretary was justified in depriving them of UK nationality on the basis that their people smuggling operation constituted serious organised crime. The penalty puts smuggling on a level with national security threats.

The people smuggler and his nephew cannot be named for legal reasons and are referred to as D5 and D6 in court documents. Also involved in their criminal organisation was D6's brother, who is known as D7.

Migrants walk along a road near Wimereux, northern France, after attempting to cross the Channel to England. EPA

The Special Immigration Appeals Commission agreed to strip D5 and D6 of UK citizenship and exclude D7 from Britain, after a hearing in 2023.

They took their case to the Court of Appeal but judges Nicholas Green and Elisabeth Laing have now backed the commission's decision.

In their decision they said the SIAC “must take the same approach in cases” in which individuals “have been deprived of their citizenship on the ground that they have been involved in and/or are likely to continue to be involved in [serious organised crime] as it must take in national security cases”.

Priti Patel, home secretary at the time, was right to make the decision on the grounds that the presence of all three men was not “conducive to the public good”, the judges ruled.

Her decision was made after a request by the UK's National Crime Agency. Its director of intelligence, Adrian Matthews, said it came after “thorough investigations”.

“These individuals were influential members of organised criminal networks involved in a range of serious criminality impacting the UK,” he said. “The NCA will use all tools at our disposal to protect the UK public from serious and organised crime.

"Our assessment of this was made following thorough investigations, and has been upheld in the Special Immigration Appeals Commission and now by the Court of Appeal. The NCA will use all tools at our disposal to protect the UK public from serious and organised crime.”

Claimed asylum

SIAC was told that D5 first arrived in the UK from Afghanistan in 2001. He was joined by his nephew D6 in 2004 and both were eventually granted British citizenship after claiming asylum.

D7 arrived clandestinely in 2007 and also given asylum after he claimed he faced persecution from the Taliban. He was given the right to remain in the UK permanently.

They became involved in crime and began to attract the attention of the police, who in 2018 raided their homes where they found £12,000 in cash and 30 mobile phones.

The NCA began an undercover operation involving two officers − codenamed George and Mark − posing as intercontinental lorry drivers who had fallen on hard times during the Covid pandemic.

The officers met the brothers in a shop owned by one of them in February 2020 and struck up a conversation in which they told them how Covid was affecting their work.

“D6 ushered George out of the shop and then asked George if he knew anyone who could bring people back into the UK,” according to the three judges who presided over the SIAC hearing.

Undercover sting

George said that he did and they agreed to discuss it the following week, and the two officers met the brothers at a petrol station in September during which D6 told George he wanted him to “smuggle people from mainland Europe into the UK”.

Afghans at a makeshift camp near Calais, northern France. AFP

The pair made “significant financial gain” from the smuggling and “each migrant would pay some £8,000 to £9,000 to be brought into the country”. Many of those who were smuggled in were children who had been trafficked for forced labour and were made to work for D5.

The uncle and nephew left for Kabul, but in the meantime the Home Office, at the request of the NCA, stripped them of their citizenship. D7 was also believed to be involved their operation and he was excluded from the UK while he was also out of the country.

After being turned back from returning, D5 and D6 entered the UK clandestinely but were eventually arrested and brought to court.

D6 is serving a 10-year sentence for people smuggling and helping his brother enter Britain illegally. His uncle, D5, was sentenced to five years in prison for entering illegally. D7 is believed to be in Finland.