AN IRAQI asylum seeker claimed yesterday that he faced certain death if he is returned to his homeland as the Home Office vowed to press ahead with forced deportations.

Mustafa Kadir is among 38 single men rounded up in Britain and detained as the Government prepares to fly them by RAF aircraft via Cyprus to northern Iraq.

The Cornish pasty-maker has gone on hunger strike and fellow detainees say he was taken to the health wing of his detention centre yesterday.

“I was very happy and enjoying my life in this country,” he told The Times in an earlier interview from his two-man cell at Harmondsmorth detention centre. “I hope one day I will get the chance to return home to Iraq but at the moment it is not safe for me.”

He fled his country in 2001 after being targeted by Islamists because his photography shop took business from a Left-wing group opposed to them.

Mr Kadir, 31, said: “I made the mistake of accepting work from this Communist party — but I was a businessman. Then the Islamic groups threatened me, saying I never went to the mosque and things like this. They made an attempt on my life once and have recently written to my father promising that I will be killed if I return.”

Mr Kadir escaped from his home in Raniyah, northern Iraq, crossing the border into Turkey. He endured an arduous journey across Europe in the back of a lorry, arriving in Dover four years ago.

He immediately claimed asylum and 12 months later his application was rejected by a tribunal. Mr Kadir blamed this on communication problems with his interpreter.

Despite this setback, he was granted a work permit and began as a machine operator at a Ginsters factory in Callington, Cornwall. He was living in a flat with a friend.

“I created a life for myself; I learnt to speak English, I was working and paying taxes, my English had improved, I have a full driving licence and I have made a lot of friends in this country. I was very happy,” he said.

On August 4, however, as he went to Plymouth police station to inform them of a change in address he was told he needed to return the next week.

When he reappeared he was arrested and told that, as he had no leave to remain, he would be repatriated. First he was detained at Tinsley House, near Gatwick, before being moved to Colnbrooke House near Oxford and then on to Harmondsworth detention centre in west London.

He went on hunger strike last Wednesday, vowing that he would rather die in this country than be sent back to his homeland and “certain death”.

He said: “This is a prison and we don’t know why they are treating us like this. We are all human beings.

“We have all been living happily in this country and many of us will be killed if we are returned to Iraq. I cannot go back.

“I don’t know what is going to happen to me. Nobody is telling us anything. I did not expect to be treated like this in any European country. What about my human rights?” Mr Kadir’s driving instructor Darren Evans of the Go Drive school in Plymouth said Mr Kadir came for lessons after police said his Iraqi licence was invalid.

“He told me he was persecuted in Iraq,” Mr Evans said.

Mustafa Iri, 26, a failed Kurdish asylum seeker who arrived in Britain in the back of a lorry five years ago, said he wanted to remain here with his girlfriend in Devon and his child. He was detained 22 days ago.

“I don’t want it but I can’t do nothing,” he said. “I got family: I got my kids here, I got my life here. Free country, isn’t it?”

Mr Justice Collins said in the High Court the Government should not forcibly remove individuals pending clarification of a legal ruling which could give them the right to stay. But he did not make an order blocking removals.

The Home Office made clear it was pressing ahead with the expulsions.

“The enforced returns will begin as soon as the practical arrangements are finalised,” a spokesman said.

A Home Office spokesman said yesterday: “It is important for the integrity of our asylum system that any individual who is found not to be in need of international protection should be expected to leave Britain.

“We will only return to areas assessed as sufficiently stable and where we are satisfied that the individual concerned will not be at risk.”

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