Ministers have approved a £153million aid package for Pakistan despite Downing Street insisting it is doing “everything possible” to deport convicted grooming gang ringleader Shabir Ahmed, the Express understands.
The Foreign Office released details of the funding, which will be be distributed over the next three years, as the Government continues efforts to remove Ahmed from Britain.
Ahmed was released from prison last month after serving 14 years for a string of child sex offences, including rape, committed in Rochdale.
The announcement prompted criticism from opposition politicians and came as Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry insisted Ahmed’s crimes were a matter for the UK.
In a strongly worded statement, foreign ministry spokesman Tahir Andrabi said Pakistan had “no connection whatsoever with this matter”.
He said Ahmed’s case 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.
“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 suspended until it agreed to accept Ahmed and other Pakistani nationals convicted of grooming gang offences, reports the Daily Mail.
“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.”
Philp described the suggestion that Britain was responsible for Ahmed’s crimes as “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.”
Reform UK also called for aid to Pakistan to be halted.
Reform UK 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 past 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 last month triggered widespread public anger.
The 73-year-old was the ringleader of a grooming gang that terrorised vulnerable girls, some as young as 12, in Greater Manchester for years.
He was jailed for 22 years in 2012 for 30 child rape offences and also received a separate 19-year sentence for child sex offences and trafficking.
The court heard he led a gang that plied girls with alcohol and drugs before they were repeatedly gang-raped in rooms above takeaway shops.
Ahmed was born in Pakistan and is believed to have arrived in the UK at the age of 14. He previously held dual British and Pakistani nationality but was stripped of his British nationality by the previous Conservative government and is understood to have renounced his Pakistani nationality.
Ministers say they were prevented from deporting him because of protections contained within a 1971 law covering certain Commonwealth citizens.
Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood announced plans this week to amend the legislation, saying it “should not be used as a bar against removal in cases like that of Shabir Ahmed”.
However, government officials say Ahmed cannot currently be removed without Pakistan’s agreement.
Downing Street said ministers were engaging with Pakistan at a senior level in an effort to secure his deportation.
A Number 10 spokesman said: “We are engaging with the Pakistan government at a senior level, doing everything possible to deport him.”
Danyal Chaudhry, a member of Pakistan’s parliamentary foreign affairs committee, also suggested responsibility lay with the UK.
Speaking to BBC Radio 4’s World at One, he said: “[Ahmed] was raised in the UK, spent his entire life there. What made him the person he was, was the circumstances around him.”
Downing Street said none of the £153million aid package would go directly to the Pakistani government but instead would be distributed through charities and other organisations working in the country.
Because Pakistan has limited tax revenues, it relies heavily on international aid to fund essential public services.
The Foreign Office said the funding would help build a “safer, more resilient Pakistan” while reducing “security and migration risks to the UK”.