KEY POINTS:
Mehdi Kazemi, 19, sought sanctuary in Britain in 2005 when he discovered that his partner had been hanged in Tehran for being homosexual. Now he fears he faces the same fate.
Kazemi claims he faces the death penalty in Iran and is expected to be returned to Iran
in the next few weeks.
Kazemi fled to Holland from Britain last year after the Home Office rejected his claim for asylum. But yesterday, a Dutch court ruled that he should be sent back to Britain after refusing to consider his claim for asylum.
Kazemi told his uncle, a British citizen, that he was "very, very angry" at the decision, which will see him returned to Britain within 72 hours.
He believed he would have had a much better chance of protection from deportation to Iran in Holland, according to his uncle.
But Holland's highest administrative court rejected his lawyers' arguments that the UK asylum and immigration system did not take proper account of international conventions that uphold the rights of refugees.
Kazemi arrived in London as a student in 2004, after which his partner was arrested by Iranian police, charged with sodomy and hanged.
In a telephone conversation with his father in Tehran, Kazemi was told that, before the execution in April 2006, his partner had been questioned about sexual relations he had with other men and under interrogation had named Kazemi as his partner.
Fearing for his life if he returned to Iran, Kazemi claimed asylum in Britain. But last year his case was refused. Afraid of the prospect of being sent home, the young Iranian attempted to evade deportation and fled to Holland.
"There is no doubt that Mehdi will be arrested and probably executed if he is sent back there," said his 51-year-old uncle, a salesman from Hampshire. "The police have issued a warrant for his arrest.
"He will be in terrible danger if he goes back."
Kazemi's only hope now is that the British Home Secretary Jacqui Smith will intervene in his case, or that either the European Court of Human Rights or the European Court of Justice agree to consider the wider implications of gay Iranian asylum-seekers. Kazemi's case is be debated by the European Parliament today.
- Independent
