SCOTTISH Labour’s Paul Sweeney is today set to urge Theresa May to help speed up the asylum application of a 10-year-old Georgian boy orphaned in Scotland.
The MP for Glasgow North East intends to raise the case of Giorgi Kakava at Prime Minister’s Questions.
Giorgi and his widowed mum Sophie fled Georgia seven years ago amid threats from gangland figures in their native country.
Tragically in February, Sophie died after a long-standing illness before their asylum application could be processed.
Her son, who only speaks English, is being cared for by his grandmother, Ketino Baikhadze, but both now fear deportation if their new application for asylum proves unsuccessful.
A local petition to stop the deportation reached 50,000 signatures in just three days.
After being approached by Reverend Brian Casey of Springburn Parish Church, who is advocating the case of Giorgi and his grandmother, Mr Sweeney pressed the Home Office to speed up consideration of their case on compassionate grounds.
As a result the family will now meet Home Office officials later today to establish the facts around the case for the family so that it can be granted asylum.
Mr Sweeney, the Shadow Scotland Office Minister, said: "Giorgi is very much a local Glaswegian boy, who has experienced terrible tragedy in his short life with the death of both his mother and father at a young age.
"It is unthinkable that he could now face deportation to Georgia, a country that is entirely foreign to him,” declared the frontbencher.
"His home is Glasgow and I will be doing everything to ensure that he is able to stay here with his friends and family. The Government must show compassion to this child; the case is compelling.”
The Labour MP added: “I will continue to do everything in my power to protect Giorgi from any risk of deportation; he is one of our own."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel