London: Immigration lawyers in the UK are briefing clients on how to lie to the authorities to win the right to stay in Britain and are charging 10,000 pounds to make false asylum claims, according to a Daily Mail investigation.
V.P. Lingajothy, a lawyer who came to the UK from Sri Lanka in 1983, asked an undercover Mail reporter to pretend that he is a pro-Khalistani who was ill-treated and tortured in India to get asylum in the UK.
The undercover reporter posed as a farmer from the Punjab who just landed in the UK on a small boat.
“You can say that the Indian government accused you of being pro-Khalistani, you were taken into custody, arrested and you were ill treated, tortured, sexually tortured. That’s why you couldn’t marry and you were frustrated, you wanted to commit suicide,” the Daily Mail quoted Lingajothy as saying.
The lawyer asked for 10,000 pounds to invent a back story to use in the asylum application, which included claims of sexual torture, beatings, slave labour, false imprisonment and death threats that left the migrant suicidal and forced him to escape to the UK.
He even promised a doctor’s report to support the story and produced anti-depressants to be given to the Home Office as “evidence” of psychological trauma, the Mail reported.
At another firm, where the undercover reporter went, the lawyer said he would have to “create the evidence” to make it appear the migrant had a genuine fear of “persecution and assassination” if he returned home.
A third lawyer said he would use it to make it appear the undercover reporter feared for his life in India, which would include reasons like anti-government political allegiances, a love affair with someone from the wrong caste or being gay.
According to the report, up to 40 solicitors’ firms are being monitored by the authorities amid suspected asylum claim “abuses” and allegations of “carbon copy” applications from different people represented by the same firms.
With a multi-million-pound property empire, most like Lingajothy enjoy the trappings of a successful lawyer.
In response to the report, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak andChancellor Alex Chalk said the “appalling” conduct by the law firms must be met with the “full force of sanctions”.
–IANS