Palestinian Leader Wins Right To Appeal Against UK Deportation Ruling

London, Nov 12, IRNA – Palestinian leader, Sheikh Raed Salah, has been granted permission to appeal against being deported from Britain in an ensuing legal battle that his presence 'would not be conducive to the public good'. Saleh, the leader of the northern branch of the Islamic Movement in Israel, won an appeal to the Upper Immigration Tribunal on six grounds against last month's ruling that he should be forcibly removed from the UK. His solicitor, Tayab Ali, welcomed the decision to allow the appeal on all the grounds, which he said was “highly significant” because Home Secretary Teresa May relied only on a “single partisan organisation” when excluding him from the UK. “Her reliance on that single source and failure to consult others was improper when making such an important decision which interferes with fundamental British rights,” Ali said. “The Home Secretary has consistently failed to show what evidence of actual harm might exist that would justify a government preventing Sheikh Salah from addressing legislators, policy makers and the British people,” he said. Salah, a former democratically elected Mayor of Umm al-Fahm in Israel, arrived in the UK on June 25 and held meetings and several engagements, including with MPs in parliament, before he was arrested three days at his hotel. May subsequently announced that he should have been subjected to an exclusion order and launched an inquiry on why he was allowed to enter the UK. The Palestinian leader, who has frequently visited Britain, has said that he was unaware of any exclusion order against him, suggesting his plight had been caused by a campaign by Jewish groups to smear him. Last month the High Court in London ruled that Salah was wrongfully detained during the early part of his detention in the UK and was entitled to damages because he was not given 'proper and sufficient reasons' for his arrest. But this was followed by an Immigration Tribunal ruling in favour of May's order to ban him as his presence 'would not be conducive to the public good'. Salah, who can remain in Britain for as long as the appeal process takes, has asked for the hearing by senior judges to take place as soon as possible./end