AN ILLEGAL immigrant being held at a Doncaster detention centre has been jailed for nine months for refusing to be deported.
In what is believed to be the first case of its kind, Shamil Shakirov admitted failing to comply with a Secretary of State's regulation to send him home.
The 40-year-old, who is being held at Lindholme Immigration and Removal Centre, refuses to re
turn to his home country of Georgia, formerly part of the Soviet Union. His reasons for not wanting to return home were not explained.
Prosecutor Carl Fitch told Doncaster Crown Court Shakirov, who was assisted in court by a Russian interpreter, had consistently refused to sign legal documents enabling him to be deported and was "adamant he was not going to sign."
His solicitor, Cheryl Dudley, said Shakirov accepted he would have to go to prison.
The judge, Recorder Eric Elliott, QC, said he was in "a straitjacket" because a prison sentence was the only sentence he could pass.
Jailing Shakirov for nine months, he said: "This was a deliberate premeditated refusal. Because of your status as a foreign national you will continue to be detained in custody either in prison or at an immigration detention centre."
The judge said others would have to look at ways of enforcing deportation in the event of an immigrant refusing to sign.
READ MOREMore Doncaster newsMain news indexYour letters.
FeaturesCheck out the very latest on South Yorkshire's roads - including live traffic cameras on Sheffield's commuter routes - with our Traffic sectionLatest sport.Entertainment news.The full article contains 264 words and appears in Doncaster Star newspaper.
