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ASYLUM-SEEKER ON THIRD CHANCE

The Times of London reports:

An Al-Qaeda terrorist who planned to create mass panic with a chemical attack could have been deported as an illegal immigrant six months before he stabbed a police officer to death.

Kamel Bourgass, a failed asylum-seeker who plotted to smear car door handles and contaminate toiletries, including Nivea face cream, and toothbrushes in shops with ricin, had been arrested in East London for shoplifting in 2002.

He was reported to the immigration authorities but no enforcement officer was available to interview him or take him into custody. Sources have told The Times that a shortage of officers means that none are on duty overnight in London.

Magistrates could have deported or detained him but fined him £70 and freed him. In January 2003, while on the run after the discovery of a safe house where he was trying to make ricin and cyanide, Bourgass murdered Detective Constable Stephen Oake and wounded three other officers.

Dang. There’s always one bad asylum-seeker who ruins it for everybody else. (By the way, that’s some fantastic immigration department Britain is running. Nobody on duty at night?)

Posted by Tim B. on 04/14/2005 at 08:46 AM
  1. Well - third time lucky.Off topic- Several times in the last two days the spokeswoman for “Sisters Inside” has guested on A.B.C. Radio, lamenting the low success rate of prisons.She then says"If you here at the A.B.C. had a 50% failure rate you wouldn’t be here would you?”. Oh wait…

    Posted by crash on 2005 04 14 at 10:15 AM • permalink

  2. That 70 quid fine should have been 100. That would have done it.

    Posted by Easycure on 2005 04 14 at 10:33 AM • permalink

  3. Don’t think Britain is soft on crime! A middle-aged female teacher was imprisoned recently for firing an air-pistol into the ground when her home was attacked by a gang of juvenile criminals, and a single father supporting a family was imprisoned for retrieving lost golf-balls from a lake and selling them. I have the references. A wonderful country!

    Posted by Susan Norton on 2005 04 14 at 11:31 AM • permalink

  4. From the Guardian:

    Mr Davis [shadow home secretary] said Bourgass should have been deported. But lawyers pointed out that Bourgass could not have been sent back to Algeria on the grounds that he could have faced torture or death there.

    Better to let him hang around to wound and kill police. Cruel joke.

    Posted by J F Beck on 2005 04 14 at 11:31 AM • permalink

  5. Mass panic? He wasn’t trying to create mass panic. He was trying to kill people.

    Posted by David Gillies on 2005 04 14 at 11:37 AM • permalink

  6. I don’t know if this is stil the case, but a few years back, I read that some very small border crossing from Canada to the US were not staffed at night.  They would just put out a sign saying come back tomorrow.  Anyone who wanted to could just walk across the border.

    Posted by Mystery Meat on 2005 04 14 at 12:17 PM • permalink

  7. By the way, the infamous Sheik Yassin, the architect of the first World Trade Center bombing in 1993, was admitted to the US as a political refugee.  He had been kicked out of Egypt for terrorist activities and membership in illegal organizations.  The Egyptian government warned the US government about him, but he was admitted anyway as the immigration authorities agreed that he had a “well-founded fear of persecution” if he returned to Egypt.

    Posted by Mystery Meat on 2005 04 14 at 12:21 PM • permalink

  8. Correct, Ioxymoron.  And the Brits didn’t learn that lesson, either.

    Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 2005 04 14 at 01:02 PM • permalink

  9. Howard for PM.

    Posted by Kofi Annan on 2005 04 14 at 01:14 PM • permalink

  10. What’s amazing is that the UK isn’t rioting about this.

    Oh well it looks like Emigration by Degree Educated English speakers up massively again.

    Posted by Rob Read on 2005 04 14 at 01:21 PM • permalink

  11. Egyptian government warned the US government about him, but he was admitted anyway as the immigration authorities agreed that he had a “well-founded fear of persecution� if he returned to Egypt.

    I’m sorry but would that not be his problem to handle?  It seems to me that in such situations the issue is between a person claiming risk or maltreatment and his or her home country.  Why should another country be forced to enter into the issue?

    Posted by wronwright on 2005 04 14 at 07:01 PM • permalink

  12. Mr Justice Penry-Davey told Bourgass: “The courts take a very serious view of those who, for misguided ideological reasons or political motives, seek to destabilise society by terrorism.�

    Sort of leaves the door open for those seeking to destablise society by terrorism for garden-variety fun or profit.  Or perhaps if one has well guided ideological reasons?

    Posted by debo.v2 on 2005 04 14 at 09:12 PM • permalink

  13. Helps explain why England to Australia immigration web sites are running red hot.

    Posted by Astonished on 2005 04 15 at 12:45 AM • permalink

  14. prediction: not a single person will lose theur job

    Posted by murph on 2005 04 15 at 09:32 PM • permalink

  15. Add to that one of the Madrid bombing “masterminds” who just “walked out of a refugee centre in Germany” to aid and abet mass murder!

    Posted by Brian on 2005 04 15 at 10:47 PM • permalink

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