IMMIGRATION officials are trapping Zimbabwean couples and forcibly deporting them when they turn up for their wedding ceremonies.

As Jack Straw told his G8 counterparts at a meeting in London yesterday that the latest wave of terror by Robert Mugabe against his own people was a “serious international concern”, the Home Office insisted that it was safe to send its detainees back to Zimbabwe.

A number of couples who were told that they had to retake their vows in a British register office to prove that they were married have been arrested with their guests and sent back to Harare within hours.

Lawyers claim that before they can get to court to fight their cases, these asylum-seekers have already been expelled. One woman, who gave her name only as Setimbile, was given a date for her register office ceremony in London last month, only to find half a dozen immigration officials waiting for her on the day.

The 26-year-old was not allowed to speak to the man she had married two years earlier in Zimbabwe. She was taken away in handcuffs and flown out within 48 hours. Her family does not know what has happened to her since.

One guest who escaped the wedding raid told how several other members of the family were also arrested. “We followed the Home Office order to prove they were genuinely married, and it was a trap.”

Half a dozen couples who showed up for weddings in Hatfield, Reading and London have been victims of this “sting” by immigration officials.

A spokesman for the Zimbabwe Community Association said: “It is a perfect chance to make sure that you get members of two families in the same place, but is a despicable trick.”

Britain is speeding up the enforced return of failed Zimbabwean asylum-seekers.

The revelation came as the hunger strike by Zimbabweans in Home Office detention spread to more removal centres. A senior immigration official said last night that the numbers taking part had doubled.

The Home Office refused to give precise numbers, though there are claims that staff at some centres are trying to force detainees to break their fast.

Detainees told The Times last night that they have been threatened by staff that if they continue the protest they will be the first to be deported.

Human rights organisations and the main opposition groups in Zimbabwe intensified their pleas to Tony Blair yesterday to halt the forced expulsions before the G8 summit next month. Officials say that they still intend to deport a celebrated Zimbabwean opposition figure, Crespen Kulingi, tomorrow. Mr Kulingi, 32, was crippled during his detention by Robert Mugabe’s regime.

His lawyers say that the Home Office has lost a tape given to them by Morgan Tsvangirai, the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) leader, supporting Mr Kulingi’s claims that he should be given sanctuary in Britain. Immigration officials say that the activist, whose mother and sister were tortured and sexually abused by Zimbabwean police, is a bogus asylum-seeker.

Mr Straw told Zimbabwe’s neighbours to do more to stop the abuses, saying: “If the reports are simply half true, and we believe them to be much more than half true, then no government which subscribes to human rights and democracy should allow this kind of thing effectively to go on under their noses.”

The Foreign and Commonwealth Office said last night that it had no idea why Whitehall colleagues at the Home Office still regarded Zimbabwe as a “safe place” to return asylum-seekers to.

The Government ended a two-year ban on enforced removals last November after ministers argued it was being abused by Zimbabweans. More than 15,000 Zimbabweans have sought sanctuary here in the four years up to 2004, though only a few hundred have been granted asylum.

The MDC in Harare last night appealed to British authorities to reverse their decision to expel Zimbabwean refugees awaiting deportation.

Paul Themba Nyathi, an MDC spokesman, said: “The international community thinks that because there’s not a war going on in Zimbabwe, it’s a normal country,” “But in reality, all the manifestations of a nation at war are there.

“The atmosphere is stifling.It’s a police state. There is no freedom. You always have to look over your shoulder in case someone is watching you.

“People’s homes are being destroyed now, and they have nowhere to go. What do you call them when they leave the country? Economic refugees? “In Zimbabwe today, you either stay and fight or you leave. Most Zimbabweans have a very good reason for leaving the country.”

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