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CAIRO – Fleeing persecution in Somalia, Isahaq Elmi says he suffered a new chapter in Britain, this time at the hand of MI5 agents who allegedly harassed him into spying on fellow Muslims.
"I thought I was safe after I was granted asylum in 2006 but since the visits and phone calls from MI5 my life has fallen apart," Elmi told The Independent on Tuesday, January 5.
He claims to have received more than 200 phone calls from MI5 agents who tried to force him to turn into an informer.
Met with outright rejection, the British intelligence agents allegedly threatened Elmi with words that echo in his ear and send jolts of fear into his body.
"One way or another we are going to get you," he recalls being told by one MI5 officer.
The first episode of Elmi’s nightmare started in March 2009 after visiting his mother in Kenya.
On his return to Heathrow he was approached by anti-terror police officers who questioned him and took a DNA sample.
They threatened to detain him and grilled him for three hours before releasing him.
Two months later Elmi was contacted by an agent called Jahil who wanted to discuss his detention at Heathrow.
"They phoned me nearly every day for two months," lamented Elmi, a community worker with no criminal record.
He finally agreed to meet the MI5 men at a police station, where they said they wanted him to work as an informant in Mogadishu.
"I said I had no information. After all, I hadn't been to Somalia for 10 years," he recalls.
"But they still said I could help and could work for them. But I said I already had a job and didn't want to spy on my friends and neighbors."
Met with firm rejection, the British intelligence officer reportedly threatened Elmi with words that still echo in his ears and send jolts of fear into his body.
"It was the one called Jahil. I told him that I never wanted to see him again. Jahil began shouting, he said, 'One way or another we are going to get you.'"
Victimized
Just like Elmi, Ahmed Diini, a Dutch citizen who has settled in Britain, says he was also bombarded with phone calls and threatened with detention under Britain’s Terrorism Act.
The 21-year-old, who came to Europe when he was three, was also visited by agents at the Birmingham school where he worked and threatened with arrest.
When Diini went on holiday he was twice detained at British airports while his wife was harassed by a female MI5 officer while shopping at an airport.
"I have to live with the fact that I won't be able to travel somewhere without being stopped for a minimum of two hours and being seen as a criminal, since the people around me in the queue don't get stopped but I am the only one that gets picked on."
The young Muslim accuses MI5 agents of turning his wrecking his life.
"My wife also became angry because I hadn't told her about the problems with MI5 before we married," he says.
"I personally got morally and mentally affected since I am being victimized."
This is not the first time the MI5 faces accusations of using intimidation tactics to recruit Muslim informers.
Last year The Independent reported five cases in London where young Somali men complained of similar harassment by the MI5.
But the government denies any wrong doing.
"The Security Service operates within the law," a spokeswoman for the Home Office told the daily.
"If anyone feels they have been unfairly treated then there are clear procedures for asking the investigatory powers commissioner, who is a senior judge, to investigate any complaints."
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