Home Office officials failed to deport a Reading jihadi back to Libya a year before he murdered three friends during a lockdown knife rampage, all because he was facing trial in the UK for “eating a mattress at a police station”, reports the Daily Mail.
First, let’s get out of the way the acknowledgement that sensationalist headlines like this should usually be taken with a pinch of salt. They often omit context or pertinent details, all for the sake of creating a furore to grab our attention. In this case, however, it seems the Daily Mail is pretty much bang on the money. Let’s dig a little deeper…
Back in June 2020, Khairi Saadallah, 27, stabbed James Furlong, 36, David Wails, 49, and 39-year-old Joe Ritchie-Bennett in Forbury Gardens, as well as injuring three other people. Witnesses reported seeing him wield “the biggest kitchen knife” and, to the surprise of probably very few, the fateful screams of “Allahu Akbar” were also heard moments before the attacks commenced.
Saadallah was subsequently arrested and an investigation into his background took place. An examination of his phone revealed an interest in extremist material, including images of the flag of Islamic State and Jihadi John. Shock, horror. Going back further, it was found that since seeking asylum in Britain in 2012 he had been repeatedly arrested and convicted of various offences, including theft and assault, between 2013 and 2020. Prior to his arrival, he had been involved in uprisings against Muammar Gaddafi, and was photographed handling weapons. To top it all off, while at HMP Bullingdon in 2017, he was seen associating with radical preacher Omar Brookes, who has connections with banned terrorist organisation Al-Muhajiroun.
So, just the kind of stable, upstanding individual we want entering our country. You might be thinking that this kind of thorough background check would have been better served before asylum was granted, not after, and you would not be alone. But in these times of lax immigration policies thanks to years of liberal mismanagement, such common sense isn’t so common.
To their credit, the court handed Saadallah a whole-life jail term; such a fitting punishment cannot always be relied upon in today’s criminal justice system. However, the story doesn’t end here.
It has since come to light in a pre-inquest review hearing that, at the time of the attack, Saadallah was awaiting trial for offences at Reading police station in July 2019, where he was drunk, disorderly, reportedly spat at an officer and partially ate a mattress. He was due in court for these offences in July 2020 – after the attack and a substantial delay due to COVID lockdowns. It has also emerged that the Home Office was planning to deport Saadallah to Lybia but was unable to “until the impending charges had been dealt with”.
So, what do we take away from this story? Essentially, we have a radicalised fanatic who shouldn’t have been here in the first place, who was eventually being prepared for deportation – better late than never – but then was able to stay even longer because the whole country was locked down because of a bad cough.
In other words, soft immigration policy, a soft criminal justice system and our Government’s draconian management of an illness less deadly than the flu have resulted in three people being murdered in broad daylight.
The Homeland Party would adopt a very strict and sensible immigration policy, striving to ensure that no criminal or likely terrorist would ever sneak into the country. We would ensure quick and efficient deportation procedures for anyone already here illegally. Lastly, we would never weaponise public health policy to attack our individual rights and freedoms.
