A ringleader of the Rochdale grooming gang has avoided being deported and it would therefore be wrong to deport two other gang members fighting to stay in the UK, an Immigration Tribunal has heard.
Abdul Aziz, 51, referred to by the gang as The Master, was told by the Home Office that despite losing an appeal depriving him of UK citizenship, the first step before deportation to Pakistan, he would not in fact lose his citizenship and was allowed to remain in the UK.
Aziz, Adil Khan, 51 and Qari Abdul Rauf, 52, were among nine gang members jailed in 2012 for a catalogue of child sex offences in Rochdale. All three were liable to be deprived of UK citizenship and deported as they also held Pakistani nationality, and then-home secretary Theresa May ruled it would be “conducive to the public good”.
