Fury over terrorist given British passport
A JUDGE expressed her surprise at the Home Office giving a terrorist a UK passport just days before he tried to travel to the Middle East, it emerged yesterday.
Mohanned Jasim, 22, told officials he wanted a one-way travel document to go to war-torn Iraq.
Instead, he was granted UK citizenship and given a passport. Just one week later he was stopped by police at Dover with fellow Jihadist Mohammed Mayow.
The Home Office decision brought criticism from the astonished judge during a bail hearing last year and was condemned by Tory MPs yesterday.
Conservative Philip Davies said: “It’s extraordinary that anybody like that could be given British citizenship.”
Fellow Tory David Davies said: “Too many British passports are being given out to too many people who frankly shouldn’t be anywhere near one.”
Jasim, of Southall, west London, was jailed for two years yesterday for encouraging support for terrorism after posting pro-Islamic State tweets on social media.
His account had been closed by Twitter five times before police tracked him down, the court heard.
Refusing him bail last year, Judge Rebecca Poulet QC said the defendant “in the period before he was stopped has clearly indicated that he wished to leave the country.
“He has now got UK citizenship and received a passport in November 2015.
“But before that he had written to the Home Office saying he wanted to leave the country under a one-way travel document. So I was a little surprised he was given citizenship and a passport.”
Jasim had wiped his mobile phone but police later linked him to a Twitter account and recovered IS material from a tablet.
Mayow, 23, was given five years and two months for dissemination of terrorist publications on Twitter.
The court heard Jasim was born in Iraq and the family moved to Damascus before arriving in the UK in 2009.