Iraqi who stabbed two doctors can stay in Britain - because deporting him would breach his human rights

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 such a 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, then 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 sent to a maximum security unit at Rampton Hospital, in Nottinghamshire and 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 tribunal was told it was the only medication found 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."

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

Surgeons were leaders in field

Cosmetic surgeons Kenneth Paton and Michael Masser were leaders in their field.

Mr Paton treated victims of the Bradford City fire disaster in 1985 and helped a Wakefield woman born without ears to hear for the first time by carrying out reconstructive surgery on the bone structure of her face.

An obituary, published in the British Medical Journal in February 1991, described Mr Masser as "an excellent surgeon who gave much thought to and read widely on his subject".

In 1991 the Paton Masser Memorial Fund was founded in memory of the murdered surgeons, with the aim of awarding 5,000 a year towards British research projects in plastic surgery.