Royal leader fears death if deported to Balochistan

The Royal leader of a Pakistani province told an asylum appeal hearing yesterday he feared assassination if he was deported.
His Highness Beglar Begi, Suleman Khan Ahmedzai, says he fled his homeland in Balochistan for South Wales to escape persecution by the Pakistani military and intelligence services.
Mr Ahmedzai, who is referred to as the Khan of Kalat, opposes Pakistan’s annexation of Balochistan in 1948. He arrived in Britain in June 2007 following the killing of another Baloch national leader, Nawab Akbar Khan Bugti, in a military raid in 2006.
In October 2007, the Khan’s application for asylum in the UK was refused.
At yesterday’s appeal hearing, the 45-year-old father-of-three, who now lives alone in Cardiff, said despite sometimes having up to 100 armed bodyguards with him in Balochistan, his safety could not be guaranteed there.
“If the government wants to get rid of you, it will get rid of you,” he said.
He claims several death threats have been made to him directly and indirectly by telephone since he came to this country.
He claims these calls were made from the Pakistani embassy in London.
At the appeal hearing in Newport, Irwin Richards, the Home Office’s presenting officer, disputed the threats were ever made.
He told Immigration Judge A Cresswell: “Even if in the alternative you are inclined to accept these phone calls were received and made of a threatening nature there is no evidence to link such calls with the Pakistani embassy in this country.”
The appeal hearing’s decision is due to be handed down within the next few weeks.
Outside the appeal hearing, the Khan said: “I have three palaces, a house on five acres and other houses. Whatever I have is there (Balochistan). Other people come into this country on banana boats or on containers or underneath trucks but they become refugees for a better life.
“My everything is there and I have come to this country for my own safety.
“I want to make the international community aware of what is going on over there.”
He claims thousands of his people have “disappeared” over the years because of their opposition to the Pakistani authorities.
“There is a carrot and stick approach,” said the Khan. “I didn’t take the carrot because of my conscience.
“I was told whatever was taken from my grandfather in 1958, which was millions of acres of land, I could have some back.”
His cause is being supported by human rights campaigner Peter Tatchell.
“The Khan is seen by many Baloch people as their head of state,” said Mr Tatchell.
“Suleman Ahmedzai is the direct descendant of the Khan of Kalat, the monarch of the state of Kalat, who signed a Treaty with the British government in 1876, making what is now Balochistan a British Protectorate.
“His grandfather was head of state when Balochistan secured its brief period of independence in 1947, before it was invaded and annexed by Pakistan in 1948.
“He attended the Queen’s Coronation in 1953, with other world leaders, as the honoured guest of the British government.
“Refusing Suleman Ahmedzai asylum is symptomatic of a pattern of harassment of Baloch refugees by the UK authorities.
“Pakistan’s military and intelligence services have threatened to end all cooperation with the UK unless our government cracks down on Baloch dissidents exiled here