EXPOSED: LIES OF ASYLUM SEEKERS WHO BECOME 'CHRISTIAN' TO STAY IN UK

MIGRANTS increasingly fake conversion to Christianity so they can remain in Britain, an asylum seeker has told the Express.

- Zak Garner-Purkis and Michael Knowles

Bilal Jaf, left, said illegal arrivals believe they have a "very good chance" of gaining asylum if their applications are supported by a vicar, priest or other senior cleric.

He said: "The best way to get a paper giving you the legal right to stay is if you can convert from Muslim to Christian."

The whistleblower's revelations come as MPs prepare to quiz church leaders today on what one former cleric has described as a "conveyor belt" of "asylum baptisms"." Tory MP Tim Loughton, a member of the Home Affairs Select Committee, said: "This confirms what we have suspected all along that there are bogus asylum seekers who are gaming our immigration system and taking advantage of the generosity of British taxpayers."

Some MPs claim clerics too easily accept migrants' requests to switch to Christianity.

Mr Loughton said: "I fear that certain church leaders have been too gullible in accepting some of these Damascene conversations and I welcome the recent announcement that the Church of England is revisiting its guidance on this issue. But there are other churches who have been played who have no formal guidance at all and need to look urgently at remedying this."

Devout Muslim Bilal was frustrated to hear about "Christian" cases progressing while his waited a long time for a decision.

The Iraqi Kurd added: "Many of them don't care about dignity, about religion, nothing is important for them, they just want to get the paper [allowing them to stay]."

Bilal said he had identified suspected fraudsters to authorities: "I have reported some of these cases to the Home Office and the police even came out to speak to me.

"In one particular case an asylum seeker burnt the Koran in order to get death threats online in a bid to try and prove their conversion to Christianity. It was all made up.

Escalation

"I don't know what happened to the person and I was never called to give evidence."