 London's High Court accused the British government on Wednesday of "an abuse of power" for refusing to allow nine Afghan asylum seekers who hijacked a plane to Britain to stay in the country as refugees. In a fiercely critical ruling, judge Jeremy Sullivan overturned the government's decision and said the conduct of the home office (interior ministry) deserved "the strongest mark of the court's disapproval". "It is difficult to conceive of a clearer case of conspicuous unfairness amounting to an abuse of power by a public authority," he said. The High Court ranks third in Britain's legal hierarchy below the Court of Appeal and House of Lords, which is the upper house of parliament and highest court in the country.
The nine Afghans, armed with knives and guns, hijacked a Boeing 727 plane in February 2000 after the aircraft left Afghanistan's capital city of Kabul on an internal flight. They ordered the pilot to fly to Stansted airport near London, where they told negotiators via radio they had fled the Taliban regime and would blow up the plane and kill everybody on board if they were not granted political asylum in Britain. | Apparently you can take the asylum seekers out of the Taliban, but you can't take the Taliban out of the asylum seekers. |
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