Lawsuit: UK officials questioned Rwanda plan
Officials at Britain’s Foreign Office warned against plans to deport asylum-seekers to Rwanda, citing the East African country’s human rights record, according to documents cited in a lawsuit brought against the British Government.
In written submissions, lawyer Raza Husain said Foreign Office officials told then-foreign Secretary
Dominic Raab in March that if Rwanda was involved, “we would need to be prepared to constrain UK positions on Rwanda’s human rights record, and to absorb resulting criticism from UK Parliament and NGOS”. The Government initially excluded Rwanda from the shortlist of potential destinations “on human rights grounds”, according to Husain, who is representing a group of asylumseekers, charities and public employee unions.
Under the plan, Rwanda would receive aid and deportees would be allowed to apply for asylum there, not Britain. Britain was forced to cancel the first deportation flight last month after a the European Court of Human Rights ruling critical of the plan. —AP
defiance of the US government. Bannon, a longtime adviser and strategist for former President Donald Trump, is facing a pair of federal charges after refusing for months to co-operate with the House committee investigating the January 6, 2021, Capitol insurrection. But his lawyers argued yesterday that the charges against him are politically motivated and that Bannon was engaged in good-faith negotiations with the congressional committee when he was charged. An unofficial adviser to Trump at the time of the Capitol attack, Bannon is charged with defying a subpoena from the January 6 committee that sought his records and testimony. He was indicted in November on two counts of criminal contempt of Congress, one month after the Justice Department received a congressional referral. Each count carries a minimum of 30 days of jail and as long as a year behind bars.