A court judgment has revealed that Shah Rahman, who was jailed for plotting to bomb the London Stock Exchange, has been allowed to remain in the UK on human rights grounds despite his asylum claim being refused.
Rahman, a Bangladeshi national, was one of four extremists convicted in 2012 for preparing acts of terrorism inspired by al-Qaeda. Authorities foiled the plot targeting London’s financial district before it could be carried out.
He applied for asylum in 2017 after being released on licence, but the claim was rejected under the Refugee Convention due to his involvement in terrorism-related offences. However, he was granted restricted leave to remain after a court ruled he could not be deported to Bangladesh without breaching his rights under Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which protects individuals from torture or degrading treatment.
The details emerged during a legal case involving his wife, Parveen Purbhoo, a Mauritian citizen, who was seeking to challenge her exclusion from the UK.
Purbhoo married Rahman in London in 2019 and was later granted entry clearance after an initial refusal. However, she was stopped by immigration officers at Heathrow Airport in August 2021, where jihadist-related images and videos were found on her phone.
A police report presented in court stated: “She appeared very blasé about having them on her mobile. She could not remember where or how they got there. She admitted that she wanted to learn more about it and what it was and about the atrocities.”
Despite this, she was initially allowed into the UK and lived with Rahman until his recall to prison in 2022. He was later convicted for breaching notification requirements after failing to declare a mobile phone, email address and bank account.
The judgment noted: “Mr Rahman accepted before the parole board that he would use the illicit mobile phone to contact the applicant. In his witness statement in these proceedings, he accepts that he used the phone to have private video calls with her.”
A forensic psychology report also found Purbhoo was “complicit in the breaches for which Mr Rahman was convicted”. In 2023, then Home Secretary Suella Braverman permanently excluded Purbhoo from the UK on national security grounds. She later challenged the decision, but her appeal was dismissed.
The court ruled: “The applicant was complicit in Mr Rahman’s unlawful breach of notification requirements; and she has not provided either the police or SIAC with an explanation of how Islamist material came to be on her phone. Her willingness to place her own interests over and above legal or administrative processes is troubling and risky.”
Judges concluded that she had been “reasonably assessed as a national security risk” and that the decision to exclude her from the UK was proportionate.
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