A migrant from Iraq who launched a legal challenge that helped block the deportation flights heading to Rwanda has been granted access to the UK asylum system, according to reports.
The European Court of Human Rights published a document disclosing that the individual, who is in his late thirties and referred to only as NSK, has withdrawn his legal case against the UK government because he has been allowed to claim asylum, The Times reports.
NSK was to be one of seven migrants that were to be flown to the Rwandan capital Kigali on the first deportation flight to the East African country in June 2022.
But he was granted an interim injunction by the ECHR after arguing that the deportation was unlawful as the UK wasn’t able to guarantee that he wouldn’t be returned to Iraq, where he claimed to have suffered torture.
The European Convention on Human Rights prohibits “indirect refoulement” – expulsion to a State from where migrants may face presecution or another deportation without a proper assessment of their situation.
The migrant’s application is based on events that took place after he worked as a security guard with UK and US soldiers at a prison in Tikrit, northwest of the Iraqi capital Baghdad, in 2004.
He alleged that while living with his wife and children he came home one day to find his wife in bed with another man, who chased and shot at him.
In his asylum application, the NSK claimed that his alleged attacker was the bodyguard for his brother-in-law, the head of intelligence for a Kurdish political party.
But he alleges that after he reported the incident authorities, his brother-in-law had him kidnapped.
NSK arrived in Kent on May 17, 2022 after crossing the Channel on a small boat. But his application was initially deemed “inadmissible” because of his passage through other safe European countries where he could have made an asylum application.
A week after arriving in Britain, he was informed via a letter that the government intended to put him on a flight to Rwanda.
He appealed the decision, claiming to have been a victim of torture. A report by a medical doctor in the Immigration Removal Centre indicated he may have been, the ECHR previously said in an press release.
He also alleged he had been trafficked from Turkey to Dunkirk.
The flight was cancelled, with two others scheduled to be on it granted reprieves, but NSK reportedly remained at risk of deportation and was thought to have been among more than 5,000 migrants indentified for flights to Kigali.
The Rwanda scheme was put forward by the previous Conservative government but was beset by legal challenges, and scrapped when Labour came to power in July.
Sir Keir Starmer’s government also did away with provisions introduced by the Tories in the Illegal Migration Act that effectively prevented anyone entering Britain illegally from claiming asylum.
NSK’s application is currently being processed by Home Office caseworkers.
