THE ‘APPALLING’ ORDEAL OF THE JET-SET ASYLUM SEEKER

A bogus asylum seeker claimed she was the victim of ‘appalling atrocities’ in Somalia to pocket nearly £300,000 in benefits – when she was ripping off the Swedish taxpayer.

Amina Muse, 38, claimed she had been gang-raped and her were family murdered when she was living a life of luxury in Scandanavia.

The mother-of-six moved to the UK in 2003 after an eight-year life of luxury at the expense of the Swedish government – where she first claimed asylum back in January 1995.

In her application to the Home Office she claimed she and her loved ones were the victims of persecution in Somalia.

It is suspected that Muse is actually Kenyan and was pretending to be a Somalian refugee so she could claim benefits.

Muse – whose real name is thought to be Ayan Abdulle – was found guilty of a string of fraud charges following a two-week trial at Harrow Crown Court.

Jailing her for four and a half years, Judge Stephen Holt said: ‘You were given Swedish passports and your children were given Swedish passports and you had two more children in Sweden and one in Denmark.

‘You decided in June 2003 to come to this country and you entered this country in the name of Amina Muse, which the jury found and I am quite satisfied was entirely false.

‘You applied for asylum and in your long written statement you set out appalling atrocities that had happened to yourself and your immediate family, including the murder and rape of your nearest and dearest during a time when you were living in comfort in Sweden at the expense of the Swedish taxpayer.

‘That document was entirely false.’

The judge said the system of asylum depended on ‘the goodwill of people in this country’.

‘One of the most serious aspects of this case is your cynical, dishonest manipulation of the whole system of asylum.’

Judge Holt described it as a ‘professional fraud’ designed to earn her as much cash as possible.

Whilst she received approximately £261,358.14 from the British benefit system, she was also getting some £50,000 from Sweden under her real name.

‘I heard evidence of you flying back and forth between the UK and Sweden and taking holidays back in Africa,’ the judge said.

‘In my view this was fraudulent from the outset, it was professionally planned and was carried out over a six year period and there were multiple frauds using two identities.’

The judge said the cost of investigating and prosecuting the case totalled some £150,000.

No confiscation order could be made as Muse, who still claims she was entitled to the money, has nothing left.

Muse claimed ‘every type of benefit’ she could including income support, disability living allowance, carers allowance, housing benefit, council tax benefit, child benefit and tax credits.

She was also given council accommodation at various addresses in northwest London including a
four-bedroom house in Camden.

Muse then used her real name, Abdulle, to claim even more benefits, the court heard.

‘This defendant has been simultaneously maintaining two sets of false benefit claims, each using a different set of identities for herself and her children,’ prosecutor Andrew Evans said.

‘And the various agencies and authorities to which she made these claims paid her benefits under both identities, Amina Muse and Ayan Abdulle, not realising that in fact they related to the same person.’

Describing her fake asylum application, Mr Evans said: ‘She made her application on the grounds she had a well-founded fear of persecution if she returned to her native Somalia.

‘She claimed that her house in Somalis had been attacked by militiamen, who had fired at her, killing her two brothers, and had looted the house.

‘She also claimed her niece had been raped, tortured and beaten and that she herself had been gang raped whilst three months pregnant.’

Muse gave birth to a daughter on December 1, 1998, in Denmark but in her asylum application she claimed this was the date of the murder of her brothers.

She wrote: ‘Armed militiamen attacked us last in the night at our house.. They opened fire at us and then broke into our house by force.

‘They shot dead my brothers, they died instantly in our presence.’

Defence barrister, Barry Cliff, said Muse still denies the allegations, despite being found guilty.

He also said there was ‘no mitigation’ for her apart from the fate of her six children and her former good character.

Muse, of North Circular Road, Neasden, nw London, was found guilty of obtaining money transfer by deception, fraud by false represetation, 12 counts of making false representations, four counts of receiving overpayments of various benefits and five counts of fraud.
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