A KURDISH Iraqi who deceived immigration authorities before becoming "trapped" in Suffolk after war broke out will be detained for nine months after applying for asylum using a false name.

A KURDISH Iraqi who deceived immigration authorities before becoming "trapped" in Suffolk after war broke out will be detained for nine months after applying for asylum using a false name.

Appearing for sentence before Bury St Edmunds Crown Court yesterday, Abdulla Barzan, 18, was told he had been sentenced on a deterrent basis to warn others considering similar frauds.

Barzan, of Norwich Road, Ipswich, pleaded guilty to a single charge of seeking leave to remain in the UK by deception during a hearing before magistrates in June.

Michael Crimp, prosecuting, told the court an original application for asylum, made in August 2000, had been refused when Barzan failed to return the appropriate documentation.

After failing to exercise his right of appeal, he then re-applied two years later using a false name and birth date.

"He did not qualify, but was granted exceptional leave to remain in this country," said Mr Crimp. "In February he obtained a home office travel document in a false name, but was detected when fingerprints taken from him in 2000 were compared with those given using the false name two years later."

Mitigating, Roz Mandil-Wade told the court repatriating Barzan into Iraq had been made more difficult by the recent military action.

"Due to the very unique circumstances in Iraq, there is no safe way in which to repatriate Iraqi Kurdish nationals," she said. "Once people who have come to the UK have their asylum claims and appeals refused, they are pretty much trapped in the country in a state of limbo.

"They are not entitled to benefits or work because they are not genuine asylum seekers, and repatriation cannot be enforced because there is no safe way to do it."

Sentencing Barzan, Judge David Goodin said: "This offence, like passport offences, potentially undermines this country's system of immigration control.

"It must be clearly understood by anybody attempting to commit such an offence that the courts will take it seriously and sentence on a deterrent basis.

"For that reason, previous good character and other personal mitigation will have less effect on sentence than it might in other cases.

"But I accept what is urged upon me in your own case that return to your own country would have been extremely difficult for you.

"Serious as this is, it is not, in my judgement, the top end of the scale of such cases, and therefore the sentence I pass is one of nine months detention in a young offenders' institution."