Crying with relief, Iraqi interpreters on the British base in Basra held a party after learning that Gordon Brown would offer them a chance to settle with their families in Britain.

The group — like hundreds of other interpreters forced to quit because of intimidation — will, however, be celebrating in full only after they hear the expected announcement from the Prime Minister himself that they will be allowed to leave Iraq.

Each individual has a pitiful tale to tell, including one man who wants to be reunited with his pregnant Iraqi wife in London. 'Barry' fled his interpreting job in May after hearing a recording of the dying screams of his father who was kidnapped, tortured and killed by militiamen because he too worked for the British.

Mr Brown is set to announce that interpreters who have worked for the British Government for 12 months will be given the opportunity of asylum in Britain, after a two-month campaign by The Times. The offer also applies retrospectively to interpreters who worked for the Government but have ceased to do so. Government sources have disclosed that a few hundred support staff would be helped.

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

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News of the deal, read by the interpreter community on Times Online on Saturday, spread rapidly, inspiring impromptu celebrations as people dared to hope that they would escape the death squads in Basra that regard anyone who works for the British military as a traitor who deserves to die.

“Gordon Brown holds our fate in his hands,” said one man, an interpreter, speaking from the main military base just outside Basra city. “If he gives us asylum we will live, if he does not we will die. It is as simple as that.” Death threats have forced many interpreters to flee to Jordan or Syria only to become stuck without hope of asylum, unable to find a new job and too scared to return home.

'Barry' is in hiding in Damascus, while his wife, an Iraqi with British citizenship, is living in London and is four months pregnant. “The suffering I have experienced is because of my loyalty to the British Forces,” said 'Barry', who worked for the military for six months from December last year and is worried that he might not benefit from the offer of assistance. Employed at a Basra hospital, he agreed to do some interpreting shifts to help his father, also an interpreter, who was swamped with work at Britain’s military claims office at the airport base, which deals with compensation requests from Iraqis.

On April 26, 'Barry's' 74-year-old father was kidnapped on his way home for lunch. That evening the Basra police found his body dumped on a patch of empty park land. He had been shot after being tortured.

“A day later I received multiple phone calls and someone said in a terrible voice, ‘The process continues and you will be the next and we will murder you very soon . . . you are a collaborator of the occupier and your fate is death’,” 'Barry' said. Over the next few days the threats continued. The militia even played down the telephone a recording of his father’s voice as he screamed and begged for mercy while being tortured.

Frantic with fear, 'Barry' turned to the British military for help. He wanted to travel to London to be reunited with his wife, who had taken advantage of her UK passport to move to Britain in July last year to escape the escalating violence.

He was advised to fly to Amman to apply for a settlement visa from the British Embassy. Fiona White, the chief political adviser in Basra to the Ministry of Defence at that time, even wrote him a letter to support his case. “Since his father’s death 'Barry' has been subject to threatening phone calls stating that he will be murdered very soon,” she wrote. “I hope you are able to view the circumstances of this case with sympathy and are able to process 'Barry’s' application as soon as possible.”

Setting off in early May, 'Barry' immediately ran into more trouble. A decision by Jordan to tighten its borders against a relentless flow of Iraqi asylum-seekers meant that he was prevented from leaving Amman airport. Instead he was forced to buy a flight to Damascus, only to be told that the British Embassy in the Syrian capital had been closed since May 2.

“I cannot return to Basra because the militia, from the time they kidnapped and murdered my father, continue to threaten my family and send threatening letters regarding me.” His wife, who was born in London to Iraqi parents but brought up in Basra, is also at a loss about what to do.

“He is my husband so I thought it would be common sense for him to be able to come here,” said the 28-year-old, who travelled to Syria to be with 'Barry' for a month in May when she fell pregnant, but then returned to her rented flat in west London.

A long-serving employee cautioned, however, that Britain must act quickly once it does confirm the offer of assistance because such a move would put the wives and children of the interpreters living in Basra at a greater risk of attack from the militias.

Personal details pertaining to 'Barry' and his wife have been altered to protect his identity

Begging for help

August 7 The Times reveals that 91 interpreters have been told they will be left behind when Britain withdraws from Basra. Denmark and the US, in contrast, offered asylum to their Iraqi employees

August 8 The Prime Minister promises a review of asylum applications lodged by interpreters

August 12 An interpreter claims that about 60 colleagues have been killed working for the British

August 15 The Times reports the story of two brothers who work as interpreters, one of whom has been killed. The other is in hiding

September 13 A commander in the Iraqi Basra security force advises all interpreters to leave, as their lives are in danger

September 16 A man believed to be an interpreter is beaten in front of his pregnant wife and killed

October 6 The Times learns that interpreters and key staff are to be allowed to settle in the UK

Source: Times archives

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