Smash hit

Baroness Amos, the Leader of the Lords, told peers in April that ministers were looking at how translators might be given asylum.

But, as The Times disclosed yesterday, No 10 wrote to one interpreter on June 22, telling him that he would receive no special favours despite a glowing reference from his military commander. Instead the interpreter, A. Kinani, was given a website address and the advice to travel to a third country to apply for a visa.

One senior Whitehall source, referring to the departmental disagreements, told The Times: “The Government as a whole needs to find a way forward on this.”

Another explained the reluctance of the Home Office to give special asylum considerations to the translators by referring to the hundreds of other Iraqis working for different branches of the Government. “If staff working for the MoD, why not the FCO, Dfid [Department for International Development] — then NGOs?” the source said.

Hundreds of Iraq interpreters rebuffed by UK

Nearly half of applications to settle in Britain have been rejected by the MoD already despite safety fears

Multimedia

• Video: the online war

• Pictures: Life in Iraq

BACKGROUND

• Story of brothers who worked for the British

• I’ve no regrets, says interpreter

• What’s Arabic for ‘we’ll stand by you’?

• Abandoned: the 91 Iraqis who risked all

Related Links

• Analysis: why Iraqi claims unsettle Brown

• Soldiers outraged that interpreters rebuffed

• ‘If we stay the militia will kill us’

The interpreters’ plight provoked anger at Westminster and in military circles. Keith Vaz, the Labour MP and chairman of the Commons Home Affairs Committee, said in a letter to The Times today: “It is in Britain’s moral and strategic interest to hold its reputation as a country that does not abandon those who have staked so much in support of British military operations.”

His view was echoed by William Hague, the Shadow Foreign Secretary, who said: “To abandon these people to their fate would be unacceptable.”

Damian Green, the Conservatives’ spokesman on immigration, said that anyone whose life was at risk because of work that they had done for Britain must have a “strong case” for asylum.

Lord Fowler, the former Conservative Party chairman, whose son has worked in a foreign correspondent in Iraq and has used translators there, said in another letter to The Times that Britain owes a clear duty to those who have risked their own and their families’ lives to help. He adds that this duty should extend to Iraqis working for British journalists in Iraq.

There was also fury among soldiers who have served in Iraq. One Territorial Army officer who served in Basra in 2003-04 said that his interpreter was visited by militia who held a gun to the head of his wife and children. They threatened to kill him and his family if he did not leave in three days. “Yet when I took up his case with the Home Office, he was immediately turned down for refugee status,” Major Andrew Alderson, of the TA Queen’s Own Yeomanry, said.

General Sir Roger Wheeler, head of the Army between 1997 and 2000, was one of many former senior officers who supported the interpreters. “If they are seen to be working for the wrong side, their chances of survival are nil,” Sir Roger said.

Crispin Black, formerly a major in the Welsh Guards and now a security analyst, said: “When the forces of an occupying power leave a country, those who have worked for them face a high risk of retaliation. It is crucially important that we protect those who have helped us.”

A Home Office spokesman said last night: “We are extremely grateful for the service provided by locally employed staff in Iraq and take their security very seriously. We recognise that there are concerns about the safety of former employees. The Government keeps all such issues under review and will now look again at the assistance we provide.

“The total number of Iraqis who have worked for the Government since 2003 with a claim for assistance could be at least 15,000. We therefore need to consider the options carefully.”

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