Refugee jailed twice for drugs offences suing Home Office for £150,000 for trying to deport him to Iraq
A REFUGEE jailed twice for drugs offences is suing the Home Office for up to £150,000 for trying to deport him back to Iraq.
Karwan Qadir Hama Saleh, 42, claims he was falsely imprisoned by being held for 635 days awaiting deportation after being released from jail.
He says he was shot and tortured by the Kurdish military in Iraq, leaving him with mental health problems including PTSD.
And, despite being jailed in 2015 and in 2018 for possessing cannabis with intent to supply, he wants the High Court to award damages for false imprisonment and personal injury.
He said: “I am happy here. I have a partner and a life and the thought of being forced back to Iraq scares the hell out of me.
“I served a jail sentence for cannabis but it was only 7g and, for that, I was in prison for three years. It is totally unfair.”
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Saleh arrived in Britain in 2002 and was given four years to stay.
He was granted indefinite leave to remain in 2010.
Five years later, he was jailed for 30 months and again for a year in 2018.
But he was on notice of deportation and held in immigration detention after his prison release.
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He now lives in Cardiff with his partner of eight years, Slovakia-born Monica Hrickova, 41.
But the Home Office said: “Foreign national offenders have no right to be in the UK, which is why we are deporting them.”