Nine gang members were sentenced to prison in 2012 for a variety of child sex offences in Rochdale, including Abdul Aziz, 51, Adil Khan, 51, and Qari Rauf, 52.
The Home Office has previously informed Aziz, referred to by the group as “the Master,” that he will not be deported.
Khan and Rauf contend that being deported would violate their human rights.
Theresa May, the then-home secretary, decided it would be “conducive to the public welfare” after the tribunal heard that all three were subject to being stripped of their British citizenship and deported since they also retained Pakistani nationality.
The men have fought a protracted legal battle against deportation since being released from prison, launching many legal objections and appeals over the course of years.
At the immigration tribunal hearing in London, it was revealed that Aziz had already been informed that he would not lose his British citizenship and be deported.
Six years after being imprisoned, on July 13, 2018, Aziz surrendered his Pakistani citizenship; however, this was only a few days before the Court of Appeal determined that he could lose his British citizenship.
After the Court of Appeal decision, Rauf and Khan only officially relinquished their Pakistani citizenship in September of the same year.
The law requires consistency of treatment, according to Rauf’s attorneys, and even though he could easily restore his Pakistani nationality by signing a document, Rauf refuses to do so because he does not want to be deported.
I have a question for the Home Secretary, if Mr. Aziz was an angel and I am a devil,” Khan said during the hearing.
Aziz was sentenced to nine years in prison in 2012 for conspiring to use penetrative sex on a child and for trafficking a 15-year-old girl for sex exploitation.
He drove his victim to apartments in Rochdale, where she was bribed with drugs and alcohol and forced to have sex with gangs of men in exchange for money.
A 15-year-old girl was trafficked for sex by Rauf, a father of five, who took her to remote locations in his cab so he could have sex with her there before taking her to a flat in Rochdale where he and other men had sex with her.
Khan made a 13-year-old girl pregnant, but he denied being the father. He then met a 15-year-old girl and, after she complained, used violence to traffic her to other people.
The hearing was postponed, and the outcome of the deportation request is anticipated later this year.
