An al-Qaeda-inspired terrorist who was convicted of plotting an attack on the London Stock Exchange has avoided deportation and been able to remain in Britain on so-called human rights grounds.
Shah Rahman, a Bangladeshi native who was jailed alongside three others in 2012 over planning to bomb the London Stock Exchange, served just five years behind bars. While he immediately applied for asylum after his release, his case was rejected by the government due to his history as a convicted terrorist.
However, it was revealed this week that Rahman was not removed from Britain after a judge ruled that returning him to his homeland would violate his rights under Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), which prevents deportations if there is a chance individuals may be subjected to torture or degrading punishments.
The facts of his case were only made public this week as a result of an immigration trial involving his wife, Purbhoo, who was barred from Britain by then-Home Secretary Suella Braverman in 2023 after authorities previously discovered ISIS-style terrorist material on her phone in 2021, The Sun reported.
While her convicted terrorist husband still remains in the country, despite having been jailed again in 2022 after breaching the terms of his release by failing to notify the parole board of a phone he was using to contact his wife, the deportation order against Purbhoo was upheld.
Nevertheless, the case has once again brought the issue of Britain’s continued membership in the ECHR to the fore of public debate.
Despite the British people having voted in the 2016 Brexit referendum to leave the European Union, the UK was not automatically withdrawn from the European Convention on Human Rights and its associated court in Strasbourg, as it is technically a separate institution from the EU, even though it shares the same anthem, flag, and campus in France.
Reform UK leader Nigel Farage has made withdrawing from the ECHR a key element of his campaign, arguing that it is essential to fully realise the promises of Brexit and to fully regain sovereignty over Britain’s borders.
The ECHR has been frequently used by heinous criminals, including foreign terrorists and paedophiles, to avoid deportation from the United Kingdom.
Regardless of this, the so-called Conservative Party under successive post-Brexit governments refused to withdraw from the agreement. This came despite the ECHR controversially intervening at the last minute to prevent a migrant removal flight from taking off to Rwanda in the summer of 2022, effectively derailing the then-Conservative government’s principal strategy to prevent illegal immigration.
Now out of government, the Tories have finally said that they agree with Mr Farage and would leave the agreement if elected. Last year, the Reform boss put forward a bill in Parliament to withdraw from the ECHR; however, the governing left-wing Labour Party, the far-left Greens, and anti-Brexit Liberal Democrats voted it down.
The Brexit champion remarked at the time that the government is “filled to the brim with woke human rights lawyers” who “prioritise a foreign court in Strasbourg over the security of the British people”.
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