Ministers have approved £153 million in UK aid for Pakistan, even as Islamabad continues to refuse the return of convicted Rochdale grooming gang ringleader Shabir Ahmed.
New Foreign Office figures, released with little fanfare, confirm the major funding package will be delivered over the next three years, despite Downing Street insisting it is doing “everything possible” to secure Ahmed’s deportation.
Ahmed was freed from prison last month after serving 14 years for a series of child sex offences in Rochdale, including rape.
The decision to press ahead with the aid commitment has sparked anger, particularly after Pakistan appeared to place responsibility for Ahmed’s crimes on Britain.
In a sharply worded statement yesterday, Pakistan’s foreign ministry distanced itself from Ahmed and suggested his life in the UK was central to the offences he committed.
Foreign ministry spokesman Tahir Andrabi said Pakistan had “no connection whatsoever with this matter”.
Mr Andrabi added that Ahmed’s future was “entirely an internal matter of the United Kingdom”.
“The individual concerned is a British national who spent his entire adult life in the UK and was duly convicted by a British court for reprehensible offences committed on British soil,” he said.
Rochdale grooming gang leader Shabir Ahmed was released from prison last month after serving 14 years for a string of child sex offences
Ahmed was pictured at a bail hostel after leaving prison just 15 miles from the scene of his vile crimes
‘Regardless of where he was born, the onus lies on where he grew up, was raised, groomed, and, unfortunately, spoiled.
‘His heinous crimes demand serious introspection rather than a quest to search for extraneous causes.’
Shadow home secretary Chris Philp said aid to Pakistan should be cut off until it agrees to take back Ahmed and all other nationals convicted of grooming gang offences.
‘Vile paedophile child rapists who came here from Pakistan should all be deported back,’ he said.
‘We should stop all overseas aid and issuance of new visas for Pakistani citizens until they take Ahmed and those like him back.’
Mr Philp added that the suggestion that the UK was to blame for Ahmed’s crimes was ‘deeply repugnant’.
Shadow foreign secretary Priti Patel said: ‘The fact Labour have approved £153million aid for Pakistan when they are refusing to take back Shabir Ahmed tells you all you need to know. No surprise that Labour slipped this out on the last day of this session of Parliament – so nobody can hold them to account.’
Shadown Foreign Secretary Priti Patel said it was ‘no surprise’ that Labour had signed off on the foreign aid for Pakistan on the last day of Parliament’s session
Reform also called for aid to Pakistan to be halted.
Home affairs spokesman Zia Yusuf said it was a scandal that Pakistan was refusing to take back its criminals after receiving more than £6billion in British aid over the last two decades.
He told the Daily Mail: ‘The fact Labour plans to continue to send them aid is proof the political class do not care about the British people. Reform will stop foreign aid and visas issued to Pakistan immediately.’
Ahmed’s release from prison this month triggered a wave of public anger.
The 73-year-old was the ringleader of a grooming gang which for years terrorised girls as young as 12 in Greater Manchester.
He was jailed for 22 years in 2012 for 30 child rape offences as well as being given a separate 19-year sentence for child sex offences and trafficking.
The court heard he led a gang which plied girls with alcohol and drugs and gang-raped them in rooms over takeaway shops.
Ahmed was born in Pakistan and is thought to have come to the UK aged 14. He held dual citizenship but was stripped of the British element by the last government and is thought to have renounced his Pakistani origins.
Shabir Ahmed accused the white community of letting down the girls who testified against him and his sex gang during his 2012 trial
Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood announced plans this week to change a 1971 law which protects certain Commonwealth citizens and had prevented Ahmed’s deportation
Ministers were prevented from deporting him by a 1971 law which protects the rights of certain Commonwealth citizens living here.
Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood announced plans this week to amend the law, saying it ‘should not be used as a bar against removal in cases like that of Shabir Ahmed’.
But officials say he cannot be sent back without the agreement of Pakistan.
Downing Street said it was looking at ways to put diplomatic pressure on Pakistan. A No 10 spokesman said: ‘We are engaging with the Pakistan government at a senior level, doing everything possible to deport him.’
But Danyal Chaudhry, a member of the Pakistan parliament’s foreign affairs committee, told BBC Radio 4’s World at One: ‘[Ahmed] was raised in the UK, spent his entire life there. What made him the person he was, was the circumstances around him.’
No 10 said that none of the aid goes to the Pakistan government but to charities and other bodies working in the country. Because Pakistan has limited tax revenues, it relies heavily on foreign aid to fund vital services.
The Foreign Office yesterday said the cash would be used to help build a ‘safer, more resilient Pakistan’ which would reduce ‘security and migration risks to the UK’.
