Convicted terror leader with link to Paris whom we cannot deport

A convicted al-Qaeda terror fundraiser with links to the Paris attacks is residing in the UK after using the Human Rights Act to prevent his deportation back to his native Algeria, The Telegraph can disclose.

Baghdad Meziane, who was jailed for 11 years in 2003 for running a terror support network, has successfully staved off Home Office attempts to deport him – despite the Government’s repeated insistence that he constitutes “a danger to the community of the United Kingdom”.

Meziane was a close associate of Djamel Beghal, a convicted terrorist who mentored two of the Paris attackers while they were in jail together. The pair lived close to each other in Leicester and Meziane, 49, once supplied Beghal with a false passport allowing him to travel to an al-Qaeda training camp in Afghanistan.

The Home Office has attempted to remove Meziane, a father of two children born in the UK, for almost six years following his release from jail in 2009.

However, it has been thwarted by Meziane’s claim that his deportation would breach his human right to a family life and that he might face torture if sent home. 

There is now a growing row over whether Britain’s security and intelligence agencies have sufficient powers to tackle the terrorist threat.

In a rare intervention, Lord Evans of Weardale, the former head of MI5, today warns that Britain’s anti-terror laws are “no longer fit for purpose”, as it is becoming easier for jihadists plotting attacks to evade the intelligence services and the police.