'They are sending me to my death' - Jojo Yakob loses his appeal to stay in Scotland

The desperate teenager had endured daily beatings, electric shocks and water torture at the hands of Syria's secret police. Lost and helpless, he was trafficked to the UK, where he hoped to build a life free from torture arising from his homosexuality and his father's links to an opposition Kurdish party.

But now, three years on, Mr Yakob again fears for his life after losing a final appeal at the Court of Session to stay in Scotland. The decision means that he will almost certainly be returned to Syria.

Mr Yakob told The Scotsman that the ruling, delivered in private by judge Lord Carloway, was the equivalent of issuing his death warrant.

He is so scared of reprisals that he asked The Scotsman to photograph him in shadow.

"They're going to send me to death. They don't treat me like a human being," said the 20-year-old, who has been staying in Edinburgh.

"I was devastated when my lawyer told me the news. I am so upset. The last three years have been very stressful for me."

A campaign backed by MSPs and gay rights groups had tried to overturn an earlier Home Office ruling and win permission for Mr Yakob to stay in the UK.

But members of the campaign say Lord Carloway's decision has hammered the final nail into the young man's coffin.

Mr Yakob's nightmare began back in 2005, when he was arrested for handing out anti-government leaflets given to him by his father, a politician with the pro-Kurdish Yakiti Party.

After his arrest, the teenager was taken to a police station, where he says he was beaten.

He was put up against a wall and had a handgun pointed at him. "I was told if I did not tell the police what they wanted, they would shoot me," he said. "I didn't think they would. Then the police officer shot me in my upper left arm."

That forced the "confession" that his torturers wanted. Mr Yakob told them his father had given him the anti-government leaflets. Mr Yakob says his father was later given a 20-year sentence for being a pro-Kurdish party activist.

The son was held for 20 days in a police cell, without charge, and claims he was subjected to electric shocks and daily beatings.

His troubles increased after he was transferred to Ahdas Prison, near the Turkish border. His guards there discovered him with another male prisoner, triggering a fresh wave of torture.

"They beat me every day and put hot knives on my body, my bottom. They told me it was because I was gay."

Another technique used by his guards was to constantly throw buckets of freezing cold water over him. Like many countries where Islam is the dominant religion, homosexuality is illegal in Syria. It is, according to a spokesman at the Syrian Embassy in London, seen as a "disease" that has to be "treated".

Mr Yakob says he was transferred from the jail to a hospital in the nearby town of Kamishli. A doctor told him he had fallen into a coma for 20 days after suffering severe blood loss.

He realised he had to escape. "I could see the police outside, so I ran away from the garden at the back of the hospital at night. I went home and took money that my father had saved. I travelled by bus for eight hours into Lebanon. I could not stay in Syria. The government say they do not imprison people any longer for being gay. This is not true."

With his father in prison, Mr Yakob had no-one to turn to. He headed to the Lebanese capital, Beirut, where he was introduced to a human-trafficking "fixer", who agreed to transport him to Britain for about 2,000.

"There were three of us placed on a lorry with fridges full of meat. We were put in a small hole between the fridges. I was not allowed to talk to the other two people. I don't know where they came from," he recalled.

He said the journey took about 20 days. They were fed and watered inside the lorry, and were only allowed to get out to relieve themselves. "We slept always on the lorry. I was in a bad state when we arrived in England," he said.

Arriving in Dover in December 2005 without any personal papers, the Home Office issued Mr Yakob with a date of birth – 1 January, 1988.

The then-teenager applied for asylum, and, after examination by a Home Office doctor – he still bore scars from the gunshot to his arm and was suffering post-traumatic shock – he was granted permission to remain in the UK for one year. However, he was refused permanent refugee status after a ruling that homosexuals were not generally persecuted in Syria.

His supporters say the Home Office also effectively rejected his claims that he was attacked for his involvement in politics, because he was unable to prove his injuries were caused by torture.

Mr Yakob spent the following weeks and months drifting from city to city, staying with people he befriended. From London, to Leicester, to Leeds, he finally wound up in Aberdeen, where he was found in April last year in possession of a fake Belgian passport.

He was handed a 12-month sentence and sent to Polmont Young Offenders' Institution, near Falkirk. His lawyers claimed his asylum application was then mistakenly withdrawn and, as a result, he was served with a deportation order pending a final hearing in May.

The hearing, at the Asylum and Immigration Tribunal in Glasgow, found against him, but he was kept at Polmont pending a last-ditch appeal to the Court of Session. He was released from Polmont on 30 May after a Good Samaritan answered an advert on a website appealing for someone to provide Mr Yakob with shelter.

Madeline Marshall, 68, from Edinburgh, answered the call, and took him under her wing for three months.

But any glimmer of hope for a new life appeared to be firmly blocked out after his lawyer, John Hall, phoned him earlier this week to inform him of Lord Carloway's ruling.

Mr Yakob fears being detained any day by the UK Border Agency and is convinced that persecution, torture and possibly even death await him if he is deported back to Syria.

He said: "This has destroyed me. I wish I could go back, but I cannot do that – it's not safe. I cannot stay here and there is nowhere else I can go. I cannot go back because I am gay and my family are involved in politics. I don't ask for anything – just safety."

"They will put me in prison for sure. They hear about me in Syria. They read the newspapers. People will be waiting for me. I told the Scottish Government what Syria did to me and my family. I came to the

UK to have freedom, but unfortunately they don't want me to be here."

FACT BOX

AN ASYLUM seeker is someone of any age who has fled their country to find safety. They must show a well-founded fear of persecution.

Asylum seekers are not allowed to work until granted refugee status.

There are believed to be around 4,000 asylum seekers in Scotland. Those deemed to have a weak claim can be sent to detention centres, such as Dungavel, in Lanarkshire. It opened in 2001 and can hold 190.

Campaigners have demanded Dungavel's closure and an end to the controversial practice of dawn raids.

Grandmother who just wanted to help

MADELINE Marshall, right, says she "just wanted to help" when she gave refuge to Jojo Yakob.

The 68-year-old grandmother, from Edinburgh, was drawn to an advert placed on a website in April by someone sympathetic to Mr Yakob's plight as he languished in Polmont Young Offenders' Institution.

She said: "I can't remember exactly, but it said something like 'young Kurdish Christian, homosexual, asylum seeker in Polmont prison. Is there anyone prepared to offer him a place to live for two or three weeks?'

"He has been no trouble to me at all. He doesn't want anything – except to be able to live here and be safe.

"The only problem I had with him is that he wouldn't take anything from me."

She says she has papers supporting his case that his injuries were due to torture. "What the Home Office is saying is that, yes, he's got these injuries, but they cannot accept they necessarily were caused by torture. But I don't know how else a boy would get these type of injuries."