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Lord's daughter and woman who met Hillary Clinton cleared of trying to smuggle refugee from the Jungle camp in Calais into UK

The daughter of a member of the House of Lords and a woman who met Hillary Clinton have both been cleared of trying to smuggle someone from a refugee camp into the UK.

Shouts of joy broke out in the public gallery as the jury returned not guilty verdicts on writer Sophia Radice and Rahela Sidiqi.

The judge ordered the public gallery be cleared because of the noise from their supporters.

Rahela Sidiqi meets Hillary Clinton
Rahela Sidiqi meets Hillary Clinton

But the mother of the man found in the boot of a car returning from the Jungle camp in France was found guilty and will be sentenced tomorrow.

Gulsoom Satarzai broke down weeping in the dock at Canterbury Crown Court after learning, through an interpreter, of the verdict.

The jury heard earlier how Ms Sidiqi had been with a party senior Afghan women invited to meet the future Presidential candidate Mrs Clinton on July 7 2009 at the State House.

In October 2016, she was one of the three women who had travelled to France from Folkestone with Daily Telegraph reporter Ms Radice and photographer to highlight the plight of women in the refugee camp.

The prosecution had alleged they had “taken advantage of the humanitarian and journalistic” visit to try to bring the man into Britain illegally.

But the jury decided Ms Radice, 54, from London, who was working for an organisation called Women For Women Refugees, and Ms Sidiqi, 52, from Welling, had played no part in the smuggling operation.

Both had denied the charge.

A family in the Jungle in Calais in 2016. Picture: SWNS
A family in the Jungle in Calais in 2016. Picture: SWNS

Now Gulsoom Satarzai, 50, from Middlesex, who was a passenger in the car driven by Ms Radice, faces prison for smuggling her son in the boot of the Ford Fiesta.

During the trial, the jury heard character evidence from documentary filmmaker Elizabeth Mermin and letters from Suraya Dalil, Afghani representative at the UN and ambassador to Switzerland; barrister Samantha Knights and former Labour politician Dame Joan Ruddock on behalf of Ms Sidiqi.

Letters from Baroness Helena Kennedy and Professor Elizabeth Silva were read on behalf of Ms Radice, whose father who sits in the House of Lords.

Prosecutor Vivian Walters told how Satarzai had been granted asylum with her daughter in 2014 and her husband and two younger children were given visas a year later.

But repeated applications on behalf of the older son, Mohammed Ilias Wahab, to enter the UK legally had failed.

He has since been allowed to stay in France after claiming asylum.

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