Rochdale grooming gang leaders could be deported under 'deal' with Pakistan after UK lifts ban on direct flights
Two ringleaders of the Rochdale grooming gang scandal could soon be deported as part of a 'deal' with Pakistan after the UK lifted a ban on direct flights to the south Asian country.
Listen to this article
Ministers have been negotiating to try and have Qari Abdul Rauf and Adil Khan deported. Khan, 54, and Rauf, 55, were jailed in 2012 for leading a nine-strong gang of Asian men who sexually assaulted 47 girls, some as young as 12, after plying them with drink and drugs.
Khan, who fathered the child of a 13-year-old grooming victim, was jailed for eight years. Rauf was jailed for six years. They are both still living in Rochdale.
Their deportation is currently blocked by Pakistan because the men renounced their citizenship and tore up their passports, leaving them 'stateless'.
A Pakistani foreign office official previously confirmed the country could change its stance if Britain dropped its ban on Pakistani airlines operating direct flights to the UK.
A five-year ban on Pakistani airlines has now been lifted following safety improvements by Pakistani authorities, potentially paving the way for their deportation.
MPs have argued this "paves the way" for a deal to deport the two Rochdale grooming gang leaders to Pakistan, despite UK ministers having no say in the lifting of the ban.
"This is very welcome news. I know that this decision will have been taken solely on the basis of the safety improvements made by the airline and is not linked to deportations," Labour MP for Rochdale Paul Waugh told MailOnline.
He added: "But it indicates exactly the kind of close working relationship we need between the UK and Pakistan to pave the way for the return of Pakistani nationals deported from the UK – including the men convicted for being Rochdale grooming gang members."
Meanwhile, Pakistani government sources told The Telegraph in June that the resumption of direct flights between Pakistan and UK could indicate 'progress' in reaching a deportation deal.
Britain banned all Pakistani airlines from operating flights in and out of the UK in 2021 after it emerged dozens of Pakistani pilots were operating with fake licences.
Pakistan applied to be removed from the UK Air Safety list, a list of countries whose air carriers are banned from operating direct flights to and from the UK. This has now been approved.
A Government spokesperson said: “Decisions on de-listing states and air carriers from the UK Air Safety List is an independent process overseen by the UK Air Safety Committee.
“Following close engagement with the Pakistan Civil Aviation Authority over several months the Committee has judged that necessary safety improvements have been made since its original decision in 2021 and has decided to remove Pakistan and its air carriers from the List.”
Foreign Secretary David Lammy has been leading discussions with Pakistan on the return of Rauf and Khan.
Mr Lammy and Home Office ministers are reportedly to "working very hard" to reach a deal.
A judge ordered the two men to be deported to Pakistan nearly a decade ago but both men renounced their Pakistani citizenship days before a court appeal against the Home Office order.
They managed to thwart deportation efforts by saying they would be made ‘stateless’ if they were sent back to Pakistan.
Pakistan has refused to take them. An official has said it would be “extremely difficult” to take back such dangerous criminals and that there was “no basis to accept them” if they had renounced their citizenship.
But the men have frustrated deportation efforts by exploiting the courts and citizenship rules.
The Home Office won a court of appeal ruling to deport them and a third member of the gang, Abdul Aziz in 2018, after stripping them of British citizenship.
However Rauf and Khan renounced their Pakistani citizenship to thwart their deportation, with Aziz tearing up his passport before the 2018 ruling.
The government was forced to let him stay because he could not be made stateless under international law.