UK deports asylum seeker sex offender after mistaken release

The UK said Wednesday it had deported an Ethiopian asylum seeker and convicted sex offender after he was accidentally released from prison in an embarrassing blunder for a government already under fire over immigration.

“Hadush Kebatu has arrived back in Ethiopia after being deported from the UK, with no right to return,” the UK’s interior ministry said, after he was re-arrested on Sunday following a nearly 48-hour-long manhunt by police.

Kebatu, 38, had served the first month of a one-year sentence for sexually assaulting a teenage girl and a woman. He was reportedly due to be deported when the Prison Service error occurred Friday.

His high-profile case earlier this year in Epping, northeast of London, sparked multiple demonstrations targeting hotels where asylum seekers were believed to be housed, as well as counter-protests.

Last week’s blunder should never have happened — and I share the public’s anger that it did,” said Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood.

Justice minister David Lammy on Monday announced an independent investigation into the gaffe, revealing that such mistaken releases had risen in recent years.

Kebatu was originally arrested in July when he was living in the Bell Hotel in Epping, which became the target of multiple violent protests for housing scores of other asylum seekers.

It is also facing a legal challenge from the local council, which does not want it used in this way.

Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s office on Tuesday announced that the government would start looking at former military sites to house asylum seekers instead of hotels to “ease the pressure on communities”.

Starmer said he wanted to see asylum seeker hotels closed “as quickly as possible” and his Labour government has committed to ending the use of hotels for the purpose by 2029.

The Cameron Barracks in northeastern Scotland and the Crowborough army camp in southeast England have been earmarked to house around 900 asylum seekers in total by the end of the year.

The policy change comes as a parliamentary report found the Home Office, across governments, had “squandered billions” on a flawed asylum housing system.

The use of former military camps for asylum housing has been contentious in the past.

The previous Conservative government was sued by asylum seekers housed in a former army camp, which courts determined had failed to meet minimum standards

AFP