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Probe sought into U.K. scandal

Hasan Suroor

LONDON: Angry refugee groups and human rights activists have joined calls for a thorough investigation into allegations of sexual exploitation of vulnerable female asylum-seekers by immigration officials.

The protests followed a Sunday newspaper report alleging that a senior official at the Immigration and Nationality Directorate (IND) in London offered to help a teenage asylum-seeker from Zimbabwe in exchange for sexual favours.

The Government also came under pressure from Opposition MPs who accused it of ignoring the "chaos'' at IND, the country's biggest centre for processing asylum claims, despite a series of allegations of sexual misconduct against its staff.

Describing the alleged incident reported in The Observer as "disgraceful and shocking'', the shadow home secretary David Davis said it was "doubly shocking'' because the Government had been warned that such things were going on at IND.

In January, a former immigration official Anthony Pamnani gave details of an alleged "sex-for-visa'' scandal at IND but an inquiry found no evidence of wrongdoing.

The Home Secretary John Reid was to face a grilling in Parliament on the issue as MPs planned to table questions to get to the truth.

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