Foreign fugitive rape rap

AN ASYLUM seeker who dodged deportation has been arrested over a rape and an attempted murder, police said yesterday.
Dangerous fugitive Caliph Ali Asmar, 25, was nabbed after a call from a member of the public following a nationwide alert.
Asmar, an Iraqi Kurd, was being hunted after a man was stabbed and seriously injured in Hull on Good Friday. He was also wanted for questioning over a serious sexual assault on a girl of 15 who was dragged into a car in the same city.
This week it emerged that Asmar first applied for asylum in Britain in 2001 and was refused, but he was not removed.
In 2005 he was jailed for two years at Hull Crown Court for wounding and the judge, Recorder Andrew Woolman, recommended him for deportation.
He was freed after only eight months — but officials under crisis-hit Home Secretary Charles Clarke ignored the judge’s advice and allowed him to stay in the country.
Asmar was arrested with four other men at an address in central Hull at around 10.30pm on Wednesday night.
Humberside Police said the other men, aged between 19 and 32, were being held in custody on suspicion of assisting an offender.
The Home Office would not comment on whether Asmar was on the list of foreign criminals who should have been deported after their release from prison.
Hull North MP Diana Johnson has promised to investigate the case.