Family deported after failed legal battle

AN asylum seeker who fought a lengthy legal battle to avoid deportation has been returned to Nigeria after the collapse of her case over allegations of fraudulent statements and the use of forged documents.

Pamela Izevbekhai and her daughters Naomi, 10, and nine-year-old Jemima were brought from the Globe House asylum centre in Sligo town at 1.30am yesterday morning and taken to Dublin Airport, where they boarded a flight to Amsterdam at 5.30am.

From there the family flew to Lagos, the capital of Nigeria.

Ms Izevbekhai had fought the deportation order, originally signed by the then-minister for justice Michael McDowell, since November 2005, on the basis that her daughters faced the threat of having to undergo female genital mutilation (FGM) were they forced to return to Nigeria.

The family were accompanied on the journey to Nigeria by members of the Garda National Immigration Bureau.

On arriving in Ireland in 2005 she had claimed that she had a daughter, Elizabeth, die in 1993 after she had undergone a brutal FGM procedure.

However, it emerged that documents she had submitted regarding Elizabeth had been forged. Ms Izevbekhai submitted further documentation but much of that documentation was also found to be fake.

In July last year the Supreme Court dismissed her appeal against her deportation, which led Ms Izevbekhai to bring the matter before the European Court of Human Rights.

Last month that court ruled against Ms Izevbekhai, meaning the way was open for her deportation.

Her solicitor, Matthew Ezeani, said he had spoken to Ms Izevbekhai when she arrived in Amsterdam.

“They had no idea [they would be deported yesterday]. They were woken up from sleep and they had no time to prepare.

“They were very distressed and very distraught.”

Mr Ezeani said the deportation of the Izevbekhais was “not an ordinary deportation” and that her case had attracted a lot of media attention in Nigeria.

He said the focus would now be on whether, on their return, the family would be granted safe passage from the Nigerian authorities.

“The eyes of the world are now on Nigeria,” he said, adding that documentation procured by Ms Izevbekhai to support her case, and found to be fake, had been received in good faith.

The European Court of Human Rights had ruled that Ms Izevbekhai’s explanation for the use of forged documents was “inadequate” and “unpersuasive”.