Legal aid snub for translators who helped British troops
AFGHAN interpreters who risked their lives for British troops have been denied legal aid to challenge the Government’s refusal to give them sanctuary.
Translators who worked during Britain’s 13-year involvement in the war cannot bring their case to the highest court in the land.
The case affects more than 100 interpreters who claim they have been abandoned to Taliban insurgents.
Those left in the country will continue to be targeted as spies and those who fled to Britain will be sent back to the war-torn nation.
Two of them – one already in Britain and one in Afghanistan – have been forced to appeal to the public to help fund their £20,000 legal action.
The money would enable them to challenge a court ruling that prevents them from taking the case to the Supreme Court. Their lawyers argue the translators should be treated in the same way as those who worked with the British military in Iraq and were granted sanctuary after death threats from militiamen.
The Daily Mail’s Betrayal of the Brave campaign has revealed how Afghan interthose preters have been shot at, beaten, faced death threats and even killed.
At least three who have fled to the UK are facing deportation because the Afghan capital of Kabul is considered ‘safe’ despite a wave of suicide bombings. But their hopes of gaining sanctuary in Britain were dashed by the Government’s refusal to grant law firm Leigh Day legal aid to fight their case.
Speaking from Kabul last night, AL, 33, one of the two interpreters, said he felt ‘betrayed’. AL, who worked for nearly six years for British and US forces said he was moving addresses regularly because of Taliban death threats. Last year bullets were fired into his family home.
He said: ‘I feel betrayed by I helped. I continually risked my life for the British to help them against the Taliban and now I live in the shadows.
‘It is a disgrace that we have been refused official financial support and I would ask the people of Britain to help us right this wrong before more families suffer.’
The other translator, Rafi Hottak, 30, was nearly blown up by a Taliban bomb while on patrol when a British officer was killed. He said: ‘The Government and military had a moral responsibility to protect us – and a moral responsibility to let us seek justice in the Supreme Court. It is crucial to the lives of interpreters that we are granted permission to bring this case.’
He added: ‘We are appealing to the British public to help us find justice for the men who stood shoulder to shoulder with their sons, daughters and husbands for many years when their lives were in danger on the frontlines.
‘Their loved ones are home but their eyes and ears who were the translators have been left behind to the terrorists.’ Rosa Curling, a human rights specialist at Leigh Day, said: ‘Former interpreters from Iraq were offered an ex gratia scheme by which they were entitled to resettle in the UK. Former interpreters from Afghanistan should be offered the same.’
Nearly 180,000 have signed a petition calling for the interpreters to be given sanctuary here. Mr Hottak said: ‘If all of those people were to give just 30p each then we would have more than enough to bring this legal action.’
Earlier this year Mr Hottak spoke of the dangers of those still in Afghanistan when he told MPs two interpreters had been murdered by the Taliban in recent months. Giving evidence to the defence select committee, he said one was shot twice by insurgents after being branded a spy.
The Mail can reveal that earlier this week France granted sanctuary to a former British military translator shot by the Taliban. Two other translators have this year been given residency in France, while nine have been granted help in Germany.
Lawyers say legal aid was denied because the chances of the case being successful were low, a claim they dispute.
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