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AN Iraqi immigrant who stabbed two doctors to death at a Yorkshire hospital has won the right to remain in Britain after judges ruled that he would pose a danger to the public in his homeland.

Paranoid schizophrenic Laith Alani, 41, has been kept in secure hospitals for 19 years after he killed consultant cosmetic surgeons Kenneth Paton and Michael Masser at Pinderfields Hospital, Wakefield.

The Home Office wanted to deport him to Iraq on his release, but an immigration tribunal decided that the move would breach his human rights and put people in the Middle Eastern country at risk.

Alani, who told police he carried out the attack because he had received a “command from Allah”, could be set free next year.

The tribunal’s decision has shocked the families of the two doctors, who had expected Alani to be returned to Iraq on completing his sentence.

Mr Paton’s widow, Dorothy, who lives in Ossett, said: “I think he should be deported. I argued that at the time of the trial.

“I think he is going to be a danger to people in Britain. He is a dangerous man.”

Dr Jasmina Masser, who like her late husband specialises in plastic surgery, said: “I am very shocked by this news. I was once very hurt by these events.”

Alani, who arrived in Britain in 1978, came into contact with the two doctors after being referred to their clinic for the removal of a tattoo on his arm.

He claimed the tattoo - a picture of an eagle above the worlds “Republic of Iraq” - was against his religion and he became concerned about how long he would have to wait for it to be removed.

On November 26, 1990, Alani, of Blackthorn Way, Silcoates Park, Wakefield, went to the hospital and used a sheath knife to kill the doctors in their offices.

Mr Masser, 42, was stabbed six times in the throat and chest and Mr Paton, 56, was knifed 24 times in the chest and abdomen.

A terrified secretary locked herself in the office toilet as she heard Alani carry out the attack.

After Alani was arrested, he told detectives: “It was a command from Allah. I have had visions from Allah and you can’t be more right than Allah.”

At his trial at Leeds Crown Court in 1991, he pleaded guilty to manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility and was detained “without time limit”.

He was initially sent to a maximum-security unit at Rampton Hospital, in Nottinghamshire. He was transferred to a smaller regional secure unit in 2005 and to a residential care home in 2008.

His appeal against deportation was heard by an Asylum and Immigration Tribunal (AIT) panel, led by senior immigration judge Lance Waumsley.

The panel found that, if deported to Iraq, Alani would be unlikely to receive the drugs which keep his mental illness under control.

Alani is understood to have been receiving the drug clozapine on the NHS for 10 years, and the AIT was told it was the only medication dound suitable to treat his condition.

The panel’s judgment read: “If his present treatment...were to be discontinued, as would most likely be the case if he were to be removed to Iraq, the potential consequences would be extremely serious for (Alani) himself, and potentially life-threatening for innocent third parties around him in the event of his likely, indeed almost inevitable, relapse into a state of paranoid schizophrenia.”

Immigration Minister Phil Woolas said: “The UK Border Agency vigorously opposes any appeal against deportation, but when the courts insist an individual cannot be removed we have to accept their judgment.

“In 2008 we deported a record 5,400 foreign criminals. All foreign national prisoners are now considered for deportation before release, and over the last three years around a quarter have gone before the end of their sentence.”

A Ministry of Justice spokesman would not comment on Alani’s case but said restricted patients were carefully managed for public protection and underwent rigorous risk assessment.

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