Chris Philp, the shadow home secretary, said: “This is a disgrace. Britain must take a zero-tolerance approach to foreign criminals and illegal immigrants. Every foreign criminal should be deported, including this sick paedophile who is a danger to children in the UK.”
A Pakistani government official said it had checked Ahmed’s records thoroughly and found that he had renounced his Pakistani citizenship several decades ago.
“As far as Pakistan’s database and official records are concerned, Shabir Ahmed is not a Pakistani national,” the official said. “Since renouncing his citizenship, he has not held a Pakistani CNIC [computerised national identity card] or passport, and the UK Government is fully aware of this position.”
The official said the UK had so far not provided Pakistan with evidence demonstrating how the required process had not been followed.
“If, at some stage, the UK provides evidence showing that Shabir Ahmed did not legally complete the required process for renouncing his Pakistani citizenship, Pakistan will obviously examine the case from that perspective,” he added.
“But so far, no such evidence has been shared with Pakistan and, in our records, he followed the process and his Pakistan nationality record stands revoked.”
Pakistan has also refused to take back two other key figures in the Rochdale grooming gang – Qari Abdul Rauf and Adil Khan – who sexually assaulted 47 girls, some as young as 12, after plying them with drink and drugs over two years.
Like Ahmed, they have been stripped of their British citizenship but have also renounced their Pakistani citizenship in order to thwart attempts to deport them to their birth country.