The charity Asylum Link Merseyside cites case of victim of torture denied health assessment and sent back to Pakistan
Kashani Jamil said he was tortured by the Taliban. Photograph: theguardian.com
The Home Office is covertly targeting the most vulnerable asylum seekers – those considered mentally unfit, or victims of torture – for deportation as part of the government's hardline stance on immigration, according to lawyers and charity workers.
Lawyers claim that asylum seekers are being forced to leave the UK without having a proper psychological or health assessment, both obligations under human rights legislation and UK immigration rules.
A spokesman for Asylum Link Merseyside said the government had started selecting the most vulnerable cases for removal. He said: "This is a concerted attempt to deport those with mental illness: it ties in with attempts to whittle down the backlog of such cases as quickly as possible. It's horrible."
Shamik Dutta of Bhatt Murphy solicitors in London said: "The Home Office has repeatedly been criticised by our courts for unlawfully detaining the victims of torture and those suffering from mental illness. It is therefore inevitable that some of those people go on to suffer the terror of unlawful removal."
One case is that of a Pakistani man who, his caseworkers claim, was deliberately denied a full psychiatric assessment or access to a lawyer before he was deported and left to fend for himself on the streets of Karachi. Kashani Jamil, 34, was removed from the UK on 26 October last year, despite the fact that the British Red Cross, Refugee Action and a Merseyside mosque had all registered disquiet about his capacity to make informed decisions.
His caseworker, Durani Rapozo, a complex-needs social worker at Asylum Link Merseyside, said: "The Home Office moved Jamil from one detention to another to avoid him being seen by solicitors and doctors so that he did not have proper health assessments."
Following the concerns, a specialist consultant was due to give him an urgent psychiatric assessment on 19 September last year. The day before, however, he was taken by the Home Office to a removal centre, where attempts to get him released were seemingly ignored. When Rapozo requested a rule 35, which means alleged torture victims are released and assessed by a doctor, Jamil was moved to another removal centre the day before a GP was scheduled to visit him.
"This should not happen in 21st-century Britain and makes me as a professional ashamed of our asylum system. Rushing to deport a vulnerable client with mental health needs who is a victim of torture is immoral and degrading, hence constitutes a breach of his human rights," said Rapozo.
Jamil claims he was tortured by the Taliban in Pakistan and forced to drink kerosene, with the result that he can now drink only milk and eat biscuits and tuna – requirements Rapozo claims were ignored by officials.
In an email to the Observer, Jamil described how during the flight from the UK his belongings were lost and that on arrival in the southern Pakistani port city he was confused.
"I was under the effect of my heavy medicine but had got medicine for just next day," he wrote. "I hadn't got money even to buy water so I was very upset I asked money to people like a beggar. Because of my limited movement I couldn't get any chance for treatment. After three months of hiding from the Taliban and due to my PTSD [post traumatic stress disorder] I am like a zombie.
"Every night flashbacks are killing me, I always feel like I am in a detention centre and can't eat or drink properly. I don't know how with my deteriorated memory and hallucinations I can survive."
In a letter to the home affairs select committee calling for an investigation into Jamil's dilemma, Rapozo writes: "The Home office dumped Jamil in Karachi and they lost all his belongings and diary that had vital contact numbers for family/friends in Pakistani and he is struggling with hearing voices. The detention of Kashan worsened his health and letters attached shows how traumatised he was in detention."
Jamil is currently in Ajman, UAE, after Rapozo put his sister in touch with him, but his temporary visa means he will have to return to Pakistan soon.
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