The Afghan heroes left behind while bogus asylum seekers flock to Britain

Telegraph

19-07-2025

Jamaluddin, not his real name, worked 'shoulder to shoulder' with British troops fighting the Taliban. A former colonel in the Afghan army, he is now living in hiding in a village north of Kabul, in fear of his life and attempting to stay one step ahead of the Taliban forces trying to hunt him down.
His name was on the list of Afghans applying for asylum in the UK, whose details were leaked inadvertently, and with catastrophic consequences, by a British soldier working out of Special Forces headquarters in central London.
Speaking by mobile phone, Jamaluddin is, by turns, petrified and furious. Not just at his abandonment by the British Government, but by a chaotic system that refused him asylum while allowing thousands of Afghans who falsely claimed they worked with British troops, and their families, into the UK.
'Among those evacuated, maybe only 20 per cent were genuine people who worked with British forces in Afghanistan and whose lives were in danger,' says Jamaluddin. 'They left behind colonels, commanders and deputy commanders of battalions while their drivers, cooks, gardeners, masseuses and shoe polishers were evacuated and are in Britain now.'
There may be some hyperbole in his claims. He can be excused for that. But his claims are grounded in truth. The Government, behind the scenes, acknowledges that the 'vast majority' of the Afghans it has let in under various official resettlement schemes made bogus claims.
'Complete chaos'
'People who never said hello to a Briton and cannot even speak English are in Britain now,' says Jamaluddin. 'We had a driver who used to steal bullets and grenades that the UK and others gave to us and sell them to the Taliban – he took him and 150 of his family members with him to Britain. He is not a good person. He was evacuated during the chaos that was created after we heard about that leak.
'There are also people who took 70, 40, 50 family members with them to Britain: mother-in-law, fourth cousins. I know someone who took his sister's husband's brother's son's in-laws. It's complete chaos.'
Official Ministry of Defence (MoD) figures disclosed to The Telegraph show that one single 'principal' allowed into the UK because of ties to the British military brought 22 dependents with him. That is a very big family. It is not hard to see how extended families even bigger than that may have slipped through the net.
Jamaluddin says: 'People who had higher ranks added hundreds of people, friends and relatives to the list and took them out. I also know lots of people who had not even fired a single bullet but are in Britain now because they said they were in the army, and Britons fell for it.
'I cannot get my head around it. In one base, there was a guy whose job was to serve tea for people who would visit the base or clean tables. He is in Britain now, but the deputy commander of the same base is now hiding in Afghanistan.
'There are many of us who worked shoulder to shoulder with British forces still here, while our drivers and cleaners with a bad background are walking around London.'
The mess has been exposed – and certainly highlighted – in the wake of a two-year court battle between the MoD and a number of newspapers, including The Telegraph.
A super-injunction prevented the media from reporting the leaking of the spreadsheet, containing the names of nearly 24,000 Afghans who claimed to be working with British troops and were entitled to relocate to the UK under the Afghan Relocations and Assistance Policy (Arap).
Ministers 'panicked'
Jamaluddin was one of the minority of people on the list whose claim for asylum was genuine. The data breach occurred in February 2022 and fell quickly into the hands of the Taliban, but journalists first learnt of it 18 months later in August 2023.
The super-injunction – the very existence of which could not be reported – covered up the MoD's blunder, but also the extraordinary scramble to put in place a secret scheme to get Afghans on the list out of their home country and to the UK, seemingly regardless of whether their asylum claim was bogus.
According to official documents, which were only revealed once the injunction was lifted on Tuesday, more than 16,000 Afghans were relocated to the UK because of the data breach. About 25,000 more are waiting in the wings.
The cost of the data breach was put at £7bn but later revised down, although the financial cost has become something of a muddle. The Government estimated needing at least £20,000 per year per eligible person, with additional costs for health and education, to rehome them.
The evacuation was done in secret. Parliament was not told, and neither were communities in places like Bracknell in Berkshire and Larkhill Army Camp in Wiltshire, which accommodated many of the Afghans. On average, each principal applicant brought with them seven family members. Some many more.
Inside the MoD, the problems of rehousing large numbers of people secretly were vexing.
One former official told The Telegraph: 'There were families made up of mid to high teen numbers. We certainly found that the many two, three and four-bed houses we had in the defence estate were often inadequate for the need and explored whether we'd need to knock two houses into one.'
Another former senior official insisted that the MoD had wanted to keep the evacuations to married couples and their children, but the courts 'kept forcing us to accept much wider family members'.
Baroness Cavendish, a Tory peer and former adviser to David Cameron, claimed that ministers had been seemingly 'panicked by the number of family members arriving'.
Writing in the Financial Times, she said that in 2023 'several central and local government officials told me that the size of Afghan family groups was making it very difficult to find them places to live'.
Godsend for bogus claimants
One MoD paper, now reportable, that was circulated in March 2024 and became a part of the super-injunction court bundle, showed that before the leak officials were only allowing 10 per cent of additional family members to come in with eligible principals.
In other words, Afghans trying to bring extended family into the UK were thwarted nine times out of 10.
But after the leak, the ' increased risk ' left officials estimating that 55 per cent of extended family would need to be allowed in. The leap was huge.
For bogus claimants, the data breach was a godsend. Suddenly, they could get to the UK and at a far swifter speed; ministers were alarmed that the Taliban were tracking them down.
But the rush also meant genuine claimants have been left behind. Jamaluddin cannot understand it. 'Ah, brother, for the sake of God, what kind of process is this?' he says from his hideout. 'What kind of justice is it? What kind of human right is it? What kind of democracy is it?
'Everyone, I think, should know about it – how the real people were left behind and criminals were evacuated. You may want to laugh, but it's our reality.'