Al-Qaeda Terrorists Obtain UK Passports
March 20, 2007
Two convicted terrorists, including a key al-Qaeda member, were among at least 10,000 applicants who fraudulently obtained passports from the Home Office in the last year, ministers said.
One of the men Dhiren Barot was the al-Qaeda figure who planned radioactive “dirty” bombs in London. He was convicted in December after admitting conspiracy to murder and jailed for 40 years. He managed to obtain nine British passports, seven of them in his name.
The other, Salaheddine Benyaich, a Moroccan national, obtained two British passports. He is serving 18 years in a Moroccan jail for terrorist offences.
Last night, the Identity and Passport Service (IPS) said a face-to-face interview would have stopped the applications.
The Home Office revealed that an estimated 10,000 fake applications had been successful by the year to September, out of more than 16,500 attempted fraudulent applications. The real figure could be far higher as officials admitted 10,000 was only an estimate.
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