Sun Abu Hamza Claim Busted

This morning’s edition of the Super Soaraway Currant Bun has brought readers what looks like a cast-iron reason for voting to leave the EU: we in the UK are allegedly powerless to stop rotten foreign criminals from being deported because of some other foreigners who are unaccountable. And what makes the case worse is that the person the Sun wants to see chucked out of the UK is one of those Scary Muslims.

In fact, the woman at the centre of the row has been claimed to be related by marriage to Abu Hamza, now serving several life sentences in the USA. So in the minds of the Murdoch doggies, that is Young Dave’s deal totally stuffed, as readers are told “Euro Judges’ Blow To PM Deal … HAMZA CROOK OFF HOOK … Cleric’s girl can’t be deported”. The woman isn’t Abu Hamza’s “girl”, but hey ho.

So what is the story? “The daughter-in-law, of South West London, was born in Morocco, where she married one of Hamza’s sons in 2002 … A year later she was given a visa to come to the UK with leave to stay until 2005 … She was then granted indefinite leave to remain but divorced Hamza’s son in 2007, only to marry him again in 2010”. And then she was jailed for trying to smuggle a SIM card into Belmarsh prison.

The thought enters that, while nominally Tory MP Philip Davies claims “My understanding is that the person concerned is the daughter of Abu Hamza, which is a very, very serious matter for the security of this country”, the idea that trying to sneak a phone card into the nick is hardly an act of terrorism, whomever the intended recipient. And Abu Hamza is still serving several life sentences somewhere in the USA.

But do go on, Sun people: the woman “was jailed for 12 months in 2012 … Home Secretary Theresa May then sought to deport her to Morocco but she immediately applied for asylum. It was rejected but she appealed and won the right to fight her case … An immigration tribunal found in her favour as her son would have to leave Britain because he had no other family here to care for him”. That would be a tribunal here in the UK.

There’s more: “Mrs May appealed to a further tribunal, which referred the case to the ECJ”. So it was the determination of our Government that caused the case to go to the European Court of Justice. And yet more: “the European Court of Justice has ruled that under European Union law she cannot be automatically deported simply because she has a criminal record unless she is deemed to pose a ‘serious’ threat to society”.

Am I missing something here? Where is this alleged threat to the country’s security that the ECJ poses? What does Abu Hamza have to do with it, as he’s in a Federal penitentiary and unlikely to emerge other than in a wooden box? What would change if the UK were to leave the EU (remembering that she would then have a child who was a UK citizen and would appeal against deportation on similar lines to what’s happening now)?

And to top all of that, this was never part of Cameron’s “deal”. Plus, in or out of the EU, there is separation of Governments and the judiciary. That’s because we don’t live in a totalitarian state. What you will not read in the Sun.