A gay asylum seeker who was ‘raped for being Christian in Iran’ is to be deported from the UK for the second time, his heartbroken boyfriend has claimed.
Madhi, 38, is being held at Colnbrook removal centre near Heathrow Airport until he can be put on a flight back to Germany, the first European country he came to in 2016 after fleeing religious and homophobic persecution in Iran.
His partner Ian Kane said Madhi ended up sleeping rough in Germany, where he ate out of bins and suffered repeated attacks by gangs of youths.
He fled once again to seek asylum in the UK, arriving in Dover illegally by boat in March last year.
Immigration officials sent Madhi later struck up an online relationship with Ian, a 55-year-old hairdresser from Enfield, north London.
Ian claims the authorities tried to deport Madhi in June last year but he had a serious self-harm episode and it went disastrously wrong.
The Home Office often send asylum seekers back to the first European country they reach under the European Union’s Dublin agreement.
But Ian claims Germany refused to take him because he was so badly injured.
He told Metro.co.uk: ‘Madhi slashed his wrists. He wanted to die. He couldn’t speak for three days.
‘He was put on a plane in just his underpants covered in blood with no medical attention whatsoever.
‘He was sent to Germany but the authorities there refused him entry. Within three hours they put him on a plane and sent him back to England.’
He added: ‘The trauma of that and what happened in Iran and Germany has just broken him.
‘When he got home he had night terrors. He would wake up punching the air. He would say, “please stop them”.
‘Any noise he would assume was them breaking in again. It was horrendous. He ended up in a psychiatric unit for two weeks.
‘A doctor said he was in imminent danger of suicide. He’s still on strong medication for all of this.’
Ian and Madhi have since found a support network at their local church in Winchmore Hill, north London.
The Winchmore Hill United Reformed Church launched a campaign to save Madhi soon after immigration officers raided Ian’s home on Monday and took him away.
Churchgoer Charlotte Khan, 41, said it would be a ‘massive loss’ to the community if Madhi is deported.
She said: ‘I can’t really describe how big a blow it would be to lose him.
She added: ‘Some of the church visited him yesterday and he is just completely broken.
‘He said he “feels his soul has left him” since he was taken on Monday.’
Charlotte says she can’t understand how they can consider deporting Madhi in his current mental state.
She said: ‘He was tortured based on his Christian faith. And as a gay man, everything is just doubled.
‘It’s a worry that if he is ever sent back to Iran, it will be a death sentence.
‘Even being sent to Germany, he is such a vulnerable individual.
‘It’s really sad but even that runs the risk of being a death sentence because of his mental health.
She added: ‘He is so loved here. We all take such good care of him here. His partner Ian is so supportive and loving.
‘From our country’s point of view, I just don’t understand how any good can come from removing him to Germany.’
The church’s Change.org petition already has more than 20,000 signatures in a just over a day.
A Home Office spokesperson said: ‘We do not routinely comment on individual cases.’
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