Theresa May cancelled British passport of man over alleged al-Qaida links but he flew back to London with Afghan papers and bid to remove him could take years

A man who was stripped of his British citizenship by Theresa May over alleged links to al-Qaida has returned to London, embroiling the government in a legal battle to remove him.

The individual, known only as M2 in court proceedings, has been declared a national security risk but embarrassingly for the Home Office he used his Afghan passport to re-enter the country before being caught.

Ministers now face a lengthy legal battle to removed M2, who is being held under strict bail conditions, according to a joint investigation from the Bureau of Investigative Journalism and the Guardian.

The home secretary can revoke the British citizenship of dual nationals and some foreign-born Britons whom she deems to be a national security risk. Since 2010, 28 people have lost their UK citizenship in this way, immigration minister James Brokenshire told parliament in March.

In the vast majority of cases, the home secretary revokes citizenship while the individual is abroad and often issues an exclusion order banning the ex-citizen from entering Britain.



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M2, on the other hand, was able to return to London within weeks of being stripped of his UK citizenship. Throughout a four-day court hearing of the special immigration appeals commission (Siac), where he is appealing May’s decision last month, he sat freely in the public gallery.

In common with other national security-related citizenship-stripping orders, much of the government’s intelligence-related evidence was presented in closed court, where it was kept secret not only from the public but also from M2 and his lawyers.



M2 arrived in the UK as a child and had indefinite leave to remain before being awarded British citizenship in 2011. In May last year, he was on a trip to Afghanistan when he was told by the Home Office that May had decided to revoke his British citizenship.

The government said M2 was to act as a courier for al-Qaida, making what the Home Office described as two suspicious trips to Afghanistan in 2013 and 2014. He claims that there were family reasons for both visits.



On the second trip, the government claims he planned to courier an iPhone and laptop to the terror organisation but changed his mind after being searched on entry at Kabul airport and gave them to his brother and a local doctor instead.

M2 acknowledges giving away the equipment, but he says this was because they are hard items to get hold of in Afghanistan – a claim that Home Office barrister Tim Eicke said was “completely lacking in credibility”.

During the open court sessions, M2’s relationship with a cousin in Afghanistan emerged as a key part of the case, although due to the secret nature of much of the proceedings it is unclear whether Britain’s security services regard the cousin as a threat. M2’s barrister, Hugh Southey, described the open evidence of a suspicious relationship between M2 and his cousin as “fairly flimsy”.



While M2 was still in Afghanistan, May served him with a deprivation order. The tribunal heard that he then had a phone conversation with a Home Office counter-terrorism official, whom he told that he was keen to return to challenge the order.

The official explained to the court that he told M2 that his British passport was cancelled, so if he wanted to return and contest the decision he would need to apply for a visa.

However, M2 still had “indefinite leave to remain” stamped in his Afghan passport and was able to return to Britain via Pakistan.

One his return, the Home Office argued that his indefinite leave was cancelled with the deprivation order and therefore he had entered the UK illegally. He was initially placed in a detention centre but was freed at a bail hearing last December and has been living in London since.

M2 has been told to wear an electronic tag, he is barred from speaking to anyone who is not pre-approved by the Home Office and can only leave his house at certain times of the day.

It is not known how long his case will take. Previous appeals have taken up to seven years. A Home Office spokesman said: “It would be inappropriate to comment while legal proceedings are ongoing.”

Victoria Parsons is a reporter with the Bureau of Investigative Journalism