From the BBC website:

Asylum couple's children 'can be held'

Lawyers acting for an Afghan asylum seeker couple have lost a battle to have their children released from a detention centre.

The four-year-old boy and six-year-old girl were held after being taken to Harmondsworth Detention Centre, near Heathrow, to visit their parents, Farid and Feriba Ahmadi.

The couple's lawyers said the move was illegal and the children must remain with family friends who had been caring for them - a view upheld by the High Court in a ruling late on Friday.

But it is understood that officials have now persuaded the court that the Home Secretary has the final say in some immigration cases and the children should remain in custody.

The Ahmadis were detained after being forcibly removed from a mosque where they had taken refuge two weeks ago, attracting widespread condemnation of police tactics.

Mrs Ahmadi told BBC Radio 4's Today programme that her children were scared and did not understand what was happening to them.

'No precedent'

The family's immigration lawyer, Pierre Makhlouf, said there had been no warning of what would happen when the children were taken to see their parents by a family friend on Friday.

He said a High Court judge ordered the release of the children, after an 11th hour appeal on Friday night.

The Home Office refused, prompting Tory former Home Office minister Ann Widdecombe to demand an explanation.

She said: "I know of no precedent for a government minister defying a court ruling."

'Traumatised'

Ahead of Saturday's ruling Mr Makhlouf said: "The position of the family lawyers is that this detention is illegal and should not have taken place without the approval of the High Court.


The raid on the mosque was widely condemned

"It seems to me to be a cynical ploy which disregards the views of the court and the lawyers who have been acting, in this case, in the interests of the children and in the interests of the parents, who are both seriously traumatised."

He said papers had been logged to make the children wards of court and that they should not have been removed from their carer until a decision on their parents asylum application was made.

Mr Makhlouf said he was calling for a psychiatric assessment of the parents, adding that he was convinced they suffered from post traumatic stress disorder.

'Regrettable'

A Home Office spokeswoman said the Ahmadi children had been "reunited" with their parents.

She said: "Detention remains an unfortunate but essential element in the effective enforcement of immigration control.

"Although very regrettable, sometimes it is necessary to detain families with children."

Ms Widdecombe said the situation was a "mess" and called on the government to explain its actions.

"Where you have got the intervention of the courts, then that is something which, however irritating, has to be supreme," she said.

Uproar

The Ahmadis say they fled the Taleban regime two years ago with their children to seek refuge in Britain.

Their case caused uproar among Muslim elders after the police and immigration officers smashed their way into a mosque two weeks ago.

Their children were not at the mosque when officers stormed in and seized the couple.

They say there is nothing left for them in Afghanistan and that they had started to build a future for themselves in England.

The Home Office says the couple should be returned to Germany, where they first sought refuge from the Taleban.

It has suspended their deportation until after a judicial review into the case.