South Africans face visa curb to shut terrorists’ route to Britain Sean O’Neill, Crime and Security Editor South Africans may be required to obtain visas to visit Britain under moves to close routes exploited by people-smugglers and terrorists.

Law enforcement agencies have been putting pressure on ministers to overhaul immigration rules that allow South African passport holders to enter Britain without a visa and stay for six months.

The Serious Organised Crime Agency (Soca) recently smashed a people-smuggling gang that brought more than 6,000 illegal immigrants into Britain on forged or stolen South African passports.

Intelligence services and anti-terrorist police have also shut an al-Qaeda cell, members of which had been travelling to terrorist training camps in Pakistan via southern Africa.

With 450,000 South African nationals entering Britain annually it has proved relatively easy for terrorists and illegal migrants to go undetected.

Sir Stephen Lander, chairman of Soca, has been pressing for a tightened visa regime in the wake of the people-smuggling case, codenamed Operation Coptine. He told MPs on the Home Affairs Select Committee that the case was “likely to lead to the reintroduction of a visa regime”. The Home Office confirmed that it is looking at the situation.

The five-year operation against people-smugglers — which involved agencies in South Africa, the United States and Canada — resulted in the convictions of more than 40 people.

They were members of a gang operating out of Leicester which, over a decade, smuggled people out of villages in Gujarat, India, to South Africa, where they were supplied with false or stolen passports.

The migrants, who paid the gang between £5,000 and £8,000 each, were then brought to Britain where many registered as students or found work. About a quarter of the illegals acquired British passports under different identities for travel to the United States and Canada.

One woman arrived in Britain using a fraudulently obtained South African passport in the name of Swati Mistry. She was subsequently detected trying to fly to Orlando, Florida, from Gatwick airport using a false British passport in the name Fazila Saleh.

Yusuf Mewaswala, 49, the leader of the gang, received a ten-year jail sentence — his third conviction for people-smuggling — but is believed to have made millions of pounds in profit from his operation.

Others convicted included specialist forgers and facilitators, and men and women who were paid £1,000 each to act as couriers accompanying the illegal migrants on transatlantic flights.

Details of the alleged terror cell — which is also understood to have exploited lax controls — linked to South Africa cannot be revealed at present for legal reasons. Intelligence experts are concerned that al-Qaeda has been using South Africa as a support base for training and fundraising for operations elsewhere. John Solomon, Head of Terrorism Research for World-Check, has studied the terrorist presence in South Africa and concluded that there was “a discernible pattern” of activity.

He said: “Prominent global jihadis . . . have used southern Africa as a possible medium through which not only to stage operations, but also to secure refuge, money and recruits.”

A British terror suspect, Haroon Rashid Aswat, was held in Zambia in 2005. Aswat, a former lieutenant of Abu Hamza al-Masri, is believed to have been hiding in southern Africa and may have had links to an al-Qaeda support network. He is in Britain awaiting US extradition proceedings.

The Home Office confirmed that Liam Byrne, the Immigration Minister, was reviewing the visa arrangements for South Africa and a number of other countries outside the European Economic Area. The review is expected to conclude later this year.

MPs are to be asked to give ministers powers to order an inquest to sit without a jury or to appoint a coroner to prevent sensitive information from being disclosed. Provisions in the counter-terrorism Bill would allow the Home Secretary to intervene in a hearing into a sudden or unexplained death in the interests of national security.

The proposals have generated concern among lawyers and some coroners as such powers are not confined to inquests into the deaths of terrorist suspects.

In 2006 around 450,000 South Africans entered Britain, including:

179,000 tourists 43,000 on business 57,300 in transit 150,000 returning 1,450 students 1,495 were refused entry 5,675 were given permission to settle

Source: Home Office