Gordon Brown - please do not send Hicham Yezza to be tortured in Algeria

I know Gordon Brown is a close reader of Hunting Monsters, so perhaps a plea from me will soften his heart.

Hicham Yezza is an administrator working in Nottingham University. He is currently due to be deported to Algeria, over some not entirely convincing immigration faux pas he may have committed. The real reason he is being deported is that he helped a Nottingham University student, Rizwaan Sabir, by printing out a document for him. The document was downloaded from the website of the Central Intelligence Agency, and purports to be a training manual for Al-Qaeda. Some busybody in Nottingham University saw the document being printed, noticed that Mr Sabir and Mr Yezza both have foreign sounding names, and did what any decent person would do, calling in the police. They unfortunately discovered that Mr Sabir is a student of International Relations who is writing a dissertation on the methods of Al-Qaeda. Just to be on the safe side, the authorities are deporting Mr Yezza, but cannot do so with Mr Sabir, as he appears to be a British national. Mr Yezza is originally from Algeria, a country where they typically torture anyone who might conceivably have anything to do with political Islam, and his prospects are rather grim should he end up there.

Just on the off-chance that anyone reading this is considering a university in which to study International Relations, it might be a good idea not to go to Nottingham, if you think that Islamist extremism might be one of your areas of study.

More:

THE WAR ON TERROR COMES TO CAMPUS (blog)

NOTTINGHAM TERROR ARRESTS (blog)

Deportation plan to be reviewed (BBC)