Wedding 'sting' that ends with one-way ticket to Zimbabwe

Daniel McGrory:

IMMIGRATION officials are trapping Zimbabwean couples and forcibly deporting them when they turn up for their wedding ceremonies.

As Jack Straw told his G8 counterparts at a meeting in London yesterday that the latest wave of terror by Robert Mugabe against his own people was a “serious international concern”, the Home Office insisted that it was safe to send its detainees back to Zimbabwe.

A number of couples who were told that they had to retake their vows in a British register office to prove that they were married have been arrested with their guests and sent back to Harare within hours.

Lawyers claim that before they can get to court to fight their cases, these asylum-seekers have already been expelled. One woman, who gave her name only as Setimbile, was given a date for her register office ceremony in London last month, only to find half a dozen immigration officials waiting for her on the day.

The 26-year-old was not allowed to speak to the man she had married two years earlier in Zimbabwe. She was taken away in handcuffs and flown out within 48 hours. Her family does not know what has happened to her since.

One guest who escaped the wedding raid told how several other members of the family were also arrested. “We followed the Home Office order to prove they were genuinely married, and it was a trap.”

Half a dozen couples who showed up for weddings in Hatfield, Reading and London have been victims of this “sting” by immigration officials.

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