Fear of Mugabe drove pilot to crime

Published on Monday 16 March 2009 20:58

ROBERT Mugabe's personal helicopter pilot tried to remain illegally in the UK because he feared the Zimbabwean president.

Matthew Mufiri, 35, spent 10 years flying Mugabe around Africa, before fleeing, a judge heard yesterday.

However, after arriving on a visitor's visa in 2004 and being rejected for a job in the RAF, Mufiri then attempted to claim his right to stay in Britain by offering officials a fake birth certificate belonging to a woman who had died in an accident in High Wycombe, Bucks.

The woman – Kathleen Durkin – has been falsely cited as the mother of more than 70 applicants for British passports, to the distress of her family, Reading Crown Court was told.

Mufiri was sentenced to six months in prison.

However Judge Anthony King made no order for deportation. The only way for Mufiri to be deported would be if he volunteered to go, the court was told.

Mufiri admitted one charge of fraudulently claiming the right to stay in the UK and one count of possessing articles for use in the fraud.