{"id":75952,"date":"2016-11-10T15:53:36","date_gmt":"2016-11-10T15:53:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/?guid=d85b28dc5e1280a71eb00593322d5176"},"modified":"2016-11-10T15:53:36","modified_gmt":"2016-11-10T15:53:36","slug":"news-story-interpreter-imprisoned-for-providing-illegal-immigration-advice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/?p=75952","title":{"rendered":"News story: Interpreter imprisoned for providing illegal immigration advice"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"govspeak\">\n<p>Mr Benjamin Shahi, of Myddelton Road, London, N8, was sentenced on 9 November 2016 at Westminster Magistrates\u2019 Court to 16 weeks imprisonment, having pleaded guilty to the charge of providing unregulated immigration advice. He was also ordered to pay \u00a31666.58 costs, \u00a31,000 compensation to the victim and a victim surcharge of \u00a380.<\/p>\n<p>Mr Shahi describes himself on his website as a British-Persian international relations researcher and political columnist; also a member of the UK Political Studies Association. He advertised his services as a professional interpreter and translator in Dari, English, Farsi and French. Mr Shahi met with a person at a caf\u00e9 in Brent Cross who was seeking immigration advice and representation. Mr Shahi went on to provide the grounds of a false asylum application, which was presented to the Home Office in support of the claim.<\/p>\n<p>Sentencing Mr Shahi the magistrate said:<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis offence happened over a protracted period of time, you were not qualified and you knew that it was a criminal offence. You suggested a fraudulent asylum claim and took money for that. You also made threats to expose the victim to the Home Office to secure payment from the victim.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Speaking about the decision, the Deputy Immigration Services Commissioner, Dr Ian Leigh, said:<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe have clear standards outlining what we expect in terms of the fitness and competence of regulated advisers. Benjamin Shahi chose to operate outside the law.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI am delighted with the outcome of this case, and I hope this sends a clear message to other people considering providing immigration advice &#8211; either act within the law or you will find yourself in court.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>London man who provided unregulated immigration advice imprisoned.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75952"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=75952"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75952\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=75952"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=75952"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=75952"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}