Iraqi fears for his life after forced return

One of 40 asylum seekers British authorities forcibly returned to Iraq says he fears for his life.

Abu Yousif is back in Baghdad, where his brother was murdered and where, he believes, the same fate awaits him.

Mr Yousif, a 39-year-old engineer, was one of 40 Iraqis thrown out of Britain, where they had sought asylum, because the Home Office decided their homeland was now safe.

To the huge embarrassment of the British Government, 30 of the deportees were refused entry by the Iraqi officials and sent back.

Mr Yousif has not seen his wife and two children or parents for more than three years. They went into hiding after the death of his brother, Sabah.

The trouble started when Mr Yousif joined a company, Global, engaged in security work for the US military.

"The terrorists must have found out about my job. I was sent an envelope with a bullet in it and a warning that I would be killed unless I stopped working for the company.

"I did not want to put my family in danger ... and I decided to leave the job. My brother went to the offices to pick up some documents for me and after he left he was murdered ... They had mistaken him for me."

Mr Yousif was advised by friends to leave the country. He paid US$8000 to a Kurdish group who took him through northern Iraq, Turkey and then across Europe in a truck to Dover. He walked into a police station in April 2006, saying he was an asylum-seeker. He was held in a detention centre in Cambridge while his application was processed. He appeared before a tribunal, where his case was rejected.

At the end of last month he was told to report to a detention centre. He was held there for two weeks, then put on the flight to Baghdad.

He shakes his head. "Now I do not know what will happen to me. I have lost everything, I feel there is just darkness ahead of me."

- INDEPENDENT