A refugee who was jailed twice for drug offences is suing the Home Office for £150,000 over a bid to deport him back to Iraq.
Karwan Qadir Hama Saleh, 42, said he was falsely imprisoned by the Home Office for 635 days while being held in immigration detention straight after his release from jail.
He was jailed for possession of cannabis with intent to supply, for 30 months in 2015 and for a year in 2018.
After his release, Saleh was put in immigration detention, which he claims constitutes false imprisonment and personal injury.
He hopes the High Court will award him damages of up to £150,000 paid by the Home Office for it.
Karwan Qadir Hama Saleh, 42, said he was falsely imprisoned by the Home Office for 635 days while being held in immigration detention straight after his release from jail (file image)
He arrived in the UK in 2002 and was initially given four years to stay, until he was granted indefinite leave to remain in 2010. This was until he was jailed twice and was due to be deported.
‘I am happy here. I have a partner and a life and the thought of being forced back to Iraq scares the hell out of me,’ Saleh told the Sun.
The 42-year-old said he has mental health problems like PTSD from when he lived in Iraq, where he said he was shot and tortured by the Kurdish military.
‘I served a jail sentence for cannabis but it was only 7g and, for that, I was in prison for three years. It is totally unfair.’
Saleh and his partner of eight years, 41-year-old Monica Hrickova, who was born in Slovakia, now live together in Cardiff.
The Home Office, from which Saleh is hoping to get paid damages for the alleged false imprisonment, told the Sun: ‘Foreign national offenders have no right to be in the UK, which is why we are deporting them.’