The British police arrested this Sunday in the London neighborhood of Finsbury Park Hardush Gerberslasie Kebatu, the Ethiopian immigrant whose sexual assault on a minor provoked violent demonstrations by neighbors in September, cheered by the far-right, in the town of Epping.
After being sentenced to 12 months in prison, the British Government planned to deport Kebatu to his home country. The latest legal reform in the United Kingdom regarding irregular immigration allows foreign criminals to be sent back if they have already served a third of their sentence.
However, when the protocol was activated on Friday by which he was going to be transferred to an immigration center for subsequent deportation, the error of a prison official, who headed towards London to get lost in the streets of the capital.
Three police forces launched a major operation against the clock to locate and arrest Kebatu, under pressure from the Prime Minister, Keir Starmer, and the Minister of Justice, David Lammy, who showed their irritation at the mistake and demanded the immediate arrest of the fugitive.
“Now we must make sure that something like this does not happen again,” Starmer said after being informed of the arrest. “We have ordered an investigation to be opened to find out what happened,” he added.
The official responsible for the error has been suspended, but the bungling has caused a political scandal used consciously by the Conservative Party and Nigel Farage’s populist extreme right to attack the Government and stir up the debate on irregular immigration.
It was the alert of a citizen, who recognized the fugitive, that led the police to his arrest. Previously, the authorities had released a video of the fugitive, who was wearing a gray tracksuit and carrying a plastic bag, to facilitate his location.
The episode has brought out the colors of a Labor Government that has boasted of being tough on irregular immigration and of being more effective in this matter than the Conservatives.
It occurred days after it became known that an Iranian immigrant who was returned to France by the United Kingdom, in application of the new pact on deportations and exchanges of both countries, returned to British territory a month later aboard a small boat that crossed the English Channel.
