Victim’s lawyer criticises application by three men who carried out attacks while stationed at Bassingbourn barracks
Three Libyan soldiers who were
convicted of sexual assaulting women while stationed at an army base are
seeking asylum in the UK, police have said.
Khaled El
Azibi, Naji El Maarfi and Mohammed Abdalsalam carried out the attacks while
stationed at Bassingbourn barracks last October.
Cambridge
police said the men had been released from prison and transferred to secure
immigration units, according to the BBC. The grounds on which the men are
claiming asylum have not been revealed.
A lawyer
for one of their three victims said the woman was dismayed. Solicitor Richard
Scorer said: “It’s difficult enough to recover from a situation where you’re
set upon by a stranger and sexually assaulted. But if you have to do that in
the knowledge that that person has now come to this country and is trying to
build a life here, I think that is very, very, very difficult to deal with, and
completely wrong and unacceptable.
“I think
it’s a breach of their human rights and really we can’t allow this to happen.”
The cadets
were among 300 troops being trained to support the newly formed Libyan
government. They stole bicycles and rode into Cambridge city centre before
accosting three teenage women during the early hours of 26 October 2014.
The
attacks included trying to kiss a woman without consent and then sexually
assaulting her. El Maarfi exposed himself to one of the women.
The men
each served sentences of between 10 and 12 months before being released from
prison. Immigration experts told the BBC they could now claim they were being
persecuted in their home country, or there was a “fear of persecution” for
bringing Libya into disrepute as a result of their
criminal convictions in the UK.
In 2013,
the G8 countries agreed to support Libya’s efforts to increase the
effectiveness and capacity of its security and justice sector institutions. In
support of this effort, the UK, US and other European partners agreed to train
more than 7,000 Libyan troops to help Libya disarm and integrate armed groups,
and improve the security and stability of the country and the region.
As part of
this package, David Cameron announced that the UK would train up to 2,000
Libyan armed forces personnel in basic infantry and junior command skills. But the plan was put on hold and soldiers
sent home after a “collapse of
discipline” and a series of criminal charges and convictions for sex offences.
Two other
cadets, Moktar Ali Saad Mahmoud, 33, and Ibrahim Abugtila, 23, werejailed for
the brutal rape of a man in Cambridge last year in a separate incident.
So serious
was the disorder that police began conducting frequent patrols around the
Bassingbourn base as residents of the nearby village feared more “escapes” and
attacks. The base was reinforced with further troops from 2 Scots, the Royal
Highland Fusiliers, who were drafted in “to bolster security and reassure the
local population”.
AMinistry
of Defence spokesman told the Guardian at the time that the group of soldiers
had been carefully chosen after undergoing immigration, security and medical
checks and that the majority had responded positively, but admitted there had
been disciplinary issues.
The
defence secretary, Michael Fallon, said that of 328 Libyans originally signed
up to the scheme, about 100 left during the course of their training by
agreement with the Libyan authorities.
The
remainder had all been returned “properly” to Libya, he added, apart from the
five convicted of sex offences and those others who had claimed asylum.
The prime
minister has previously insisted that no Libyan soldiers involved in the MoD
programme should be granted asylum after a “very small handful” made
applications to stay in the UK.
The Home
Office, which does not comment on individual cases, said: “Those who break our
laws should be removed from the country at the earliest opportunity and we will
seek to remove any foreign national offender who receives a custodial sentence
for a criminal offence.”
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