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Pakistani linked to terror allowed
to stay in Britain

A Pakistani imam, linked to the Laskhar-e-Tayiba terrorist outfit, has been allowed to stay in Britain despite losing a four-year legal battle that went to the House of Lords.

Shafiq-ur-Rehman, 30, was told last week that deportation proceedings against him have been dropped even though the home office spent hundreds of thousands of pounds fighting the case.

Rehman, an imam at a mosque in Oldham, will be allowed to remain in Britain for at least three years. His lawyers are now seeking permanent residence for him.

The home office said the case has been dropped because he has severed his links with terrorist groups and is no longer regarded as a threat to national security.

A year ago, Home Secretary David Blunkett won a landmark ruling in the House of Lords that Rehman had raised money and recruits for the LeT, a terrorist group accused of attacking the Indian Parliament last year.

Blunkett's predecessor, Jack Straw, had originally ordered his deportation in 1998 as "an undesirable".

Rehman has never been prosecuted or detained under the emergency laws to intern terror suspects without trial, and he has always maintained innocence.

However, the home office said Rehman is partly responsible for an increase in the number of British Muslims "who have undergone some form of militant training, including indoctrination into extremist beliefs, and at least some weapons training".

"It is not fair that I have been persecuted over the past four years," he said. "I am not a terrorist. I have not helped terrorists, and I have not funded any terrorists," Rehman said on Wednesday.

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