London (AFP) – The UK government said Wednesday it had forcibly deported an Ethiopian migrant and convicted sex offender, giving him £500 ($661) to leave, as it came under fire on multiple fronts over immigration.
The interior ministry said Hadush Kebatu was back in Ethiopia early Wednesday after an embarrassing blunder when he was released from a UK prison by mistake last week.
“It is right that he has been removed. He was forcibly deported,” junior minister Alex Norris told parliament.
But he acknowledged the man, who was accompanied by a five-strong team of escorts on the plane late Tuesday, had kicked up a fuss and made “very real threats to disrupt the flight”.
So “an operational decision was taken to provide a £500 payment” to Kebatu, 38, who had demanded £1,500 to leave under a government migrant return scheme.
“The alternative was slower, more expensive for the taxpayer, and would have included detention, a new flight, and no doubt subsequent legal claims,” Norris said.
The interior ministry said Kebatu had “no right to return” to the UK, after he was re-arrested in a London park on Sunday following a nearly 48-hour police manhunt.
Kebatu had served the first month of a one-year sentence for sexually assaulting a teenage girl and a woman when he was accidentally released last week.
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.
Justice minister David Lammy on Monday announced an independent investigation into Kebatu’s accidental release, revealing that such mistakes had risen in recent years.
A series of immigration-related issues in the past days has piled even more pressure on beleaguered Prime Minister Keir Starmer and his Labour government.
London police are investigating after a man was killed and two people injured, including a 14-year-old boy, in a daylight stabbing on Monday in Uxbridge, a town west of London.
UK media reported a man under arrest for the attack was an Afghan national, while the interior ministry confirmed only that he was a foreigner legally residing in Britain since 2022.
The Home Office said the suspect entered Britain in a truck in 2020 and was granted asylum in 2022.
It said he was not living in a hotel or other accommodation provided by the authorities, as falsely claimed on social media.
‘Billions squandered’
Tough questions were also raised in parliament Wednesday about plans for the government to use two former army barracks to house asylum seekers as it seeks to end its use of hotels to accommodate migrants.
Starmer has said he wants 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 Inverness, northeastern Scotland, and the Crowborough army camp in southeastern England have been earmarked to house around 900 asylum seekers in total by the end of the year.
Earlier this week, a parliamentary report found the Home Office, across different governments, had “squandered billions” on the 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.
