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South Africans face visa curb to shut terrorists’ route |
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South Africans may be required to obtain
visas to visit Britain under moves to close routes
exploited by people-smugglers and terrorists. Law
enforcement agencies have been putting pressure on
ministers to overhaul immigration rules that allow South
African passport holders to enter Britain without a visa
and stay for six months.
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The Serious Organised Crime
Agency (Soca) recently smashed a people-smuggling gang
that brought more than 6,000 illegal immigrants into
Britain on forged or stolen South African passports.
Intelligence services and anti-terrorist police have
also shut an al-Qaeda cell, members of which had been
travelling to terrorist training camps in Pakistan via
southern Africa. |
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With 450,000 South African nationals entering Britain annually it has proved
relatively easy for terrorists and illegal migrants to go undetected. Sir
Stephen Lander, chairman of Soca, has been pressing for a tightened visa regime
in the wake of the people-smuggling case, codenamed Operation Coptine. He told
MPs on the Home Affairs Select Committee that the case was “likely to lead to
the reintroduction of a visa regime”. The Home Office confirmed that it is
looking at the situation.
The five-year operation against people-smugglers — which involved agencies in
South Africa, the United States and Canada — resulted in the convictions of more
than 40 people. They were members of a gang operating out of Leicester which,
over a decade, smuggled people out of villages in Gujarat, India, to South
Africa, where they were supplied with false or stolen passports.
The migrants, who paid the gang between £5,000 and £8,000 each, were then
brought to Britain where many registered as students or found work. About a
quarter of the illegals acquired British passports under different identities
for travel to the United States and Canada. One woman arrived in Britain using a
fraudulently obtained South African passport in the name of Swati Mistry. She
was subsequently detected trying to fly to Orlando, Florida, from Gatwick
airport using a false British passport in the name Fazila Saleh.
Yusuf Mewaswala, 49, the leader of the gang, received a ten-year jail sentence —
his third conviction for people-smuggling — but is believed to have made
millions of pounds in profit from his operation.
Others convicted included specialist forgers and facilitators, and men and women
who were paid £1,000 each to act as couriers accompanying the illegal migrants
on transatlantic flights. Details of the alleged terror cell — which is also
understood to have exploited lax controls — linked to South Africa cannot be
revealed at present for legal reasons. Intelligence experts are concerned that
al-Qaeda has been using South Africa as a support base for training and
fundraising for operations elsewhere. John Solomon, Head of Terrorism Research
for World-Check, has studied the terrorist presence in South Africa and
concluded that there was “a discernible pattern” of activity.
He said: “Prominent global jihadis . . . have used southern Africa as a possible
medium through which not only to stage operations, but also to secure refuge,
money and recruits.” A British terror suspect, Haroon Rashid Aswat, was
held in Zambia in 2005. Aswat, a former lieutenant of Abu Hamza al-Masri, is
believed to have been hiding in southern Africa and may have had links to an
al-Qaeda support network. He is in Britain awaiting US extradition proceedings.
The Home Office confirmed that Liam Byrne, the Immigration Minister, was
reviewing the visa arrangements for South Africa and a number of other countries
outside the European Economic Area. The review is expected to conclude later
this year.
MPs are to be asked to give ministers powers to order an inquest to sit without
a jury or to appoint a coroner to prevent sensitive information from being
disclosed. Provisions in the counter-terrorism Bill would allow the Home
Secretary to intervene in a hearing into a sudden or unexplained death in the
interests of national security.
The proposals have generated concern among lawyers and some coroners as such
powers are not confined to inquests into the deaths of terrorist suspects. |
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Travel
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