Reporter Kassim Mohammed writing at the Nairobi Star gives us a peek into how a Somali who wishes to get to the UK and ask for asylum (because it’s supposedly easier there to be granted asylum than, in say, the Netherlands) can buy a fake passport and be in London in a flash.

Readers should know that when seeking asylum, the asylum seeker is supposed to request asylum in the first country in which he or she arrives.

So, for instance those Somalis who travel across the world with many stops (including Cuba, South American and Central American countries and Mexico) and arrive on our US border and ask for asylum are really not eligible for asylum.  But, some cheating American asylum lawyer is waiting to help them get into the US anyway!  See one of many posts I’ve written on Somalis and the US borders, here.

This article from the Nairobi Star explains that for Somalis or other Muslim illegal aliens who pass through the Netherlands they do not want to request asylum there and thus cheat the system and buy a phony passport to move on to England.

From the Nairobi Star (published at AllAfrica.com)

The UN says you must keep your Somalis! No sending them back to Africa!

Somalia is mired in a seemingly unending armed conflict between the Transitional Federal Government and Al Shabaab fighters. Mortar and rocket fire that the two warring factions exchange lead to casualties and the common man bears the brunt.

Taking note of this grim reality, the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) has issued guidelines requesting host countries not to return any Somali seeking asylum to Southern and Central Somalia.

[….]

Under the European Union’s Dublin II regulations, the country where a person first entered the EU is generally held responsible for examining that person’s asylum claim.

This it appears is great on paper. Some of the Somali refugees who hear of the fate of their countrymen living on the streets opt out of the asylum process.

So instead of asking for asylum in the Netherlands, here is how they move on to London!

Ali Mohamed, 25, came to Rotterdam, The Netherlands, from Italy in April and decided not identify himself to authorities but use unorthodox means to get his way to the United Kingdom. “I heard that the Netherlands is not a good place to seek asylum. I don’t want to live on the streets. I will try my luck in London,” Ali said.

Ali was informed of Dutch passports for sale in Den Haag (The Hague). In the presence of the Star reporter, Ali was told by an Ethiopian man in the Dutch administrative capital to bring a passport size photograph to identify a passport that resembles him. Within five days, Ali managed to pocket a Dutch passport for 1,000 Euros (Sh126,000).

“I called several of my relatives in Canada and Norway who each sent me some money and I managed to raise the amount. I know it’s a bad thing but I am not planning to harm anyone, I just want a better life since my home country is uninhabitable,” Ali remarks while keenly looking at the photo attached to the passport.

Ali will now have to send back the passport after his arrival in his final destination- London. He went through Callais, France, and crossed the border into the United Kingdom. Immigration officials on both sides of the border didn’t notice any abnormally.

Keeping his promise to inform the Star on his progress of seeking asylum, Ali called after 17 days. “I am so happy. I have been accepted as a refugee here in the UK and all is well. I have also managed to send back the passport to the person who sold it to me. I hope it reaches him safely.”

Read it all.

Changing the subject—sort of!

Today we learned that there is a Somali terror plot to create a Mumbai-style attack on a London hotel.

Just today we learned that the now dead mastermind of the embassy bombing in Kenya, killed in Somalia a few days ago, had on him a plan to create a Mumbai-style attack on a London hotel.

From Fox News:

Federal authorities are warning hotels in major U.S. cities to be vigilant after intelligence recently obtained in Somalia shows Al Qaeda was planning to launch a “Mumbai-style” attack on an upscale hotel in London, England, Fox News has learned exclusively.

The intelligence came from computer accessories and other materials gathered at the checkpoint in Mogadishu where Fazul Abdullah Mohammed, the Al Qaeda operative who masterminded the 1998 U.S. embassy bombings in East Africa, was killed Saturday, according to sources.

Al Qaeda was working on what one senior U.S. intelligence official described as an “aspirational” – but possibly operational – plot to target the Ritz Carlton hotel in London. As part of the plot, operatives would stay in strategically chosen rooms on the first floor of the hotel, and then they would set their rooms ablaze in hopes of trapping guests on the floors above.

But you can’t send them back—the UN says so!