The British Home Office is denying it has plans to forcibly return a handful of refugees to Afghanistan to show would-be asylum seekers the UK is not a soft touch.
A leaked e-mail from the UN's refugee agency UNHCR claims an official from the UK Immigration Service wanted "a couple" of Afghan asylum seekers sent home from Britain as a deterrent effect on others.
The memo, written by a UNHCR legal officer and leaked to Channel 4, was written following an Immigration Service fact-finding mission to Kabul headed by its deputy director, Mr Colin Harbin.
It said: "Mr Harbin would be particularly satisfied if he could obtain from the Afghan authorities that 'a couple' of Afghans be forcibly returned to Afghanistan in order to show concrete signs of firmness which would have in his view a deterrent effect."
The Home Office denied this was a UK Government plan but said it was looking at resuming enforced returns to Afghanistan as soon as it becomes safe to do so.
A Home Office spokesman said: "We can confirm the UK Immigration Service visited Kabul last month on a fact-finding mission to assess conditions in Afghanistan and to meet with the Afghanistan interim government and UNHCR.
"We have no plans to forcibly return a handful of Afghans to Kabul to display concrete signs of firmness and a deterrent factor."
Afghans arriving in the UK have been able to qualify for asylum because of years of Taliban rule. However since the regime has now been toppled by Allied forces and an interim government is in place, the British government is considering changing its policy.
The e-mail also claimed that in the same briefing Mr Harbin talked of being impressed by the Danish government's attempts to deport rejected asylum seekers and the effect that had in cutting the number of Somalis seeking asylum in Denmark.
PA