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IMMIGRATION

Police slammed for botched deportation

Police from Gävleborg in eastern Sweden "deserve serious criticism" for deporting a man to the wrong country in October of last year, the Ombudsman for Justice has ruled.

The 53-year-old man applied for residency in Sweden in 2002, but his application was rejected.

In October 2010 the police in Gävle in eastern Sweden were instructed to deport him back to Iran.

However, police instead deported him to Iraq where he risks 15 years in prison for claiming to be an Iraqi citizen.

The incident was reported to the Ombudsman, who has now directed strong criticism towards the police.

“Through their headstrong actions”, the police ignored the rule of law in the asylum process, the ombudsman argued.

The ombudsman found that a person being deported has to accept being sent to the country agreed upon, and that Iraq was never an option.

According to acquaintances of the man’s sister, the man remained in jail at a police station in Baghdad on November 16th.

“I travelled to Baghdad and got to visit my brother at the police station. He was in a dark cell without electricity along with several others. I could barely see him behind the bars,” the man’s sister told the Dagens Nyheter daily at the time.

The man is still in jail in Baghdad.

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IMMIGRATION

France ‘will not welcome migrants’ from Lampedusa: interior minister

France "will not welcome migrants" from the island, Gérald Darmanin has insisted

France 'will not welcome migrants' from Lampedusa: interior minister

France will not welcome any migrants coming from Italy’s Lampedusa, interior minister Gérald Darmanin has said after the Mediterranean island saw record numbers of arrivals.

Some 8,500 people arrived on Lampedusa on 199 boats between Monday and Wednesday last week, according to the UN’s International Organisation for
Migration, prompting European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen to travel there Sunday to announce an emergency action plan.

According to Darmanin, Paris told Italy it was “ready to help them return people to countries with which we have good diplomatic relations”, giving the
example of Ivory Coast and Senegal.

But France “will not welcome migrants” from the island, he said, speaking on French television on Tuesday evening.

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has called on Italy’s EU partners to share more of the responsibility.

The recent arrivals on Lampedusa equal more than the whole population of the tiny Italian island.

The mass movement has stoked the immigration debate in France, where political parties in the country’s hung parliament are wrangling over a draft law governing new arrivals.

France is expected to face a call from Pope Francis for greater tolerance towards migrants later this week during a high-profile visit to Mediterranean city Marseille, where the pontiff will meet President Emmanuel Macron and celebrate mass before tens of thousands in a stadium.

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