Legal victory for Algerian bomb suspect

An ALGERIAN sentenced to death after being convicted of “involvement” in an airport bombing in the north African nation 20 years ago has won the latest round of a legal fight to stay in the UK.

The Court of Appeal said senior immigration judges should consider the terror suspect’s claim for refugee status again, after hearing how he had moved to France, then been expelled and made his way to Britain.

Judges said the Asylum and Immigration Tribunal had “erred in law” when considering the man’s case at a hearing in 2010 and must rethink.

One appeal judge said many people might find the case “astonishing”.

Legislation said people might not be given refugee status if they had committed a “serious non-political crime abroad”, the judges heard.

The immigration tribunal said it was satisfied the man “did not come within the provisions” governing refugee status.

But the appeal court yesterday said immigration judges had not discussed the “seriousness” of the man’s offence or fully analysed the “appropriate threshold of seriousness”.

They did not name the man but said he was born in 1963 and was Algerian. Judges said he had been convicted in his absence in Algeria of involvement in a bombing at an airport in Algiers in 1992 and sentenced to death.