LONDON: An Iranian asylum seeker cleared of smuggling people to Britain has said the authorities made him a “scapegoat.”
Fouad Kakaei was jailed for two years and two months in January after he steered a small dinghy toward the English coast.
But he was found not guilty at a second trial after demonstrating that he was piloting the boat because of the risk to life.
His lawyer Aneurin Brewer said there were concerns that the government was using laws designed to tackle smugglers to prosecute asylum seekers because they are “easy targets.”
Kakaei’s successful appeal comes as the number of people reaching Britain by small boats since the start of 2020 approaches 20,000.
Last year, 54 people were arrested for facilitating illegal entry into Britain across the English Channel, but investigations found that 33 of them were “subsequently identified as asylum seekers,” and just 18 went on to be prosecuted.
At the retrial, the prosecution could not establish that Kakaei intended to avoid detection. The dinghy was intercepted by UK border authorities and all those on board claimed asylum.
He told the court that he had paid smugglers for transport to the English coast before being put on a boat, and that he chose to steer the craft because “nobody was able to steer it.”
He added: “I could see everybody’s life was in danger. To save myself and the lives of the rest ... I started to take control of the boat. It was a matter of life and death.”
He said while he was in custody, he felt that “one way or the other they wanted to find me guilty ... They wanted a scapegoat.”
Kakaei said he fled Iran because his “life was in danger,” but the process of trying to claim asylum in Europe was “hell.” He added that before arriving in Britain, he had started a failed asylum process in Denmark.
Following Kakaei’s retrial, the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) reviewed similar cases, scrapping 12 that involved charging people who had piloted small boats.
The CPS has published new guidance to advise against prosecuting migrants who pilot boats unless it can be demonstrated that they themselves are the smugglers.
A Home Office spokesman said: “We will welcome people through safe and legal routes whilst preventing abuse of the system, cracking down on illegal entry and the criminality associated with it.”
