Search: Cleared, no charges

by Andy Worthington

A former footballer, Ahmed Belbacha was born in Algiers in 1969. He left his homeland in 1999, after receiving death threats from militants because he worked for a government-run oil company, and sought asylum in the UK.

Ahmed lived and worked in Bournemouth, first at a laundry and then at the Swallow Royal Hotel, where he was responsible for cleaning John Prescott’s room during the 1999 Labour Party conference. For his diligence, he received a thank-you note from the Deputy Prime Minister and a tip for his service.

 Ahmed Errachidi is a gourmet chef who worked at the Westbury Hotel in Mayfair (London, England). He had two young sons, one of whom was in dire need of a heart operation in 2001. He left for Pakistan in September of that year to buy silver jewelry there which he hoped to resell in Morocco in order to raise the money for his son's operation. However, in October of that year, when the US invaded Afghanistan, he left Pakistan to attempt to help civilians affected by the war.