by Hugo Timms, Spectator (Photo: Wikimedia Creative Commons)
Mohammed Yaseen’s presence in Britain ought to be an Earth-shattering scandal.
In the not-so-distant past, Mohammed Yaseen’s name would have been on the front page of every newspaper in Britain. It would have dominated radio and TV bulletins. The government of the day would be reeling as it tried to explain how a convicted terrorist had been allowed to enter the UK illegally and leech off the state, even as he mocked our country by making an asylum claim on human-rights grounds. Jobs would be lost, careers would be in disarray, over a scandal betraying such carelessness and incompetence. But not in Britain in 2026. We have become numb to the unceasing horrors of our borderless society.
Yaseen is currently living in a bail hostel in Windsor. But before we get to how he ended up there, it’s important to keep the following in mind. He is an Iraqi citizen and a former member of both al-Qaeda and ISIS. He reportedly belonged to the same ‘cell’ that, in 2004, kidnapped and beheaded British engineer Ken Bigley. He has been described in court as a ‘bystander to public executions, stonings and floggings’. He served as a security guard for ‘at least two’ mass executions and was involved in attacks that killed American troops in Iraq. He arrived in Germany in 2014, where in 2020 he was sentenced to four years and three months in prison for participating in a terror organisation and belonging to ISIS.
Yaseen’s recent history is a parable for the drawn-out suicide of Western societies. He made three failed asylum applications in Germany, but was never deported. He watched a TikTok video that told him (correctly, it seems) that the UK ‘accepts everyone’. On 13 December last year, he boarded a small boat in northern France. Like clockwork, his vessel was intercepted in the English Channel and diverted to Dover. From there, he was taken to the Manston immigration centre in Kent, where he lied about his name, age and nationality.