VIDEO How an asylum seeker sentenced to prison for sexual assault ended up being freed by mistake in Great Britain. “He should be expelled, not left on our streets”

An Ethiopian asylum seeker, sentenced to prison in Great Britain for sexual assaults, facts that triggered a series of anti-immigration demonstrations in the Kingdom this summer, has been released by mistake, the British authorities announce, who are now conducting a large-scale manhunt for his capture, reports France Presse, Sky News and The Guardian on Saturday.

• Hadush Gerberslasie Kebatu, the Ethiopian asylum seeker whose stay in a government-funded hotel sparked massive protests in Britain this summer, had just been jailed last month for sexually assaulting a 14-year-old girl and a woman.

Deputy Prime Minister David Lammy, who is also justice minister, said he was “appalled” by the error, adding that his services were working “as a matter of urgency with the police to find him”.

“Kebatu must be deported for his crimes, not left on our streets,” added Minister David Lammy, who ordered an investigation into this erroneous release.

He was last seen “in the London area”

Essex County Police (south-east England), along with London Metropolitan Police and British Transport Police, were on Saturday conducting a large-scale search to find the 41-year-old man, who was seen “in the London area” after he was mistakenly released from Chelmsford Prison in Essex.

According to British media, Hadush Kebatu was supposed to be transferred from Chelmsford Prison in Essex to an administrative detention center with a view to deportation, but was instead mistakenly released by the authorities.

Essex Police confirmed the man was seen boarding a train at Chelmsford station at 12.41am on Friday.

A statement issued on Saturday morning by the Police stated:

• “Inquiries are ongoing to locate and arrest this man following an error by the prison service yesterday. Officers from Essex Police, the Metropolitan Police and Transport Police are working together in this complex and fast-paced investigation.
• They worked through the night to track his movements, including analyzing hours of surveillance footage, and that work continues today. Our investigation shows he was last seen in the London area.”

The police appeal to the public to support the search with any relevant information, and at the end of the statement they emphasize: “We are aware that this situation worries citizens and we are committed to locating and arresting him as quickly as possible.”

Prison Service sources quoted by The Guardian say Kebatu's release from Chelmsford prison is down to human error. According to the sources, the prison officer who authorized the release was suspended during the investigation.

At the same time, a source at Chelmsford Prison described the incident as “an unannounced disaster”, due to the large number of releases being processed by inexperienced staff and the simultaneous release of dozens of prisoners serving different sentences.

His actions, committed shortly after his arrival in England, sparked widespread protests

In September, British justice sentenced this asylum seeker from Ethiopia to one year in prison for sexually assaulting a 14-year-old girl and a woman in Epping, a town north-east of London.

Hadush Kebatu had arrived in Britain at the end of June, crossing the English Channel on an inflatable boat. He committed the crimes only eight days after his arrival here.

After his arrest in July, demonstrations, some of them violent, were held outside the hotel in Epping where he was staying, which then spread to other cities in the United Kingdom.

The Ethiopian was staying at The Bell Hotel in Epping with around 130 other asylum seekers, which is standard British government policy for asylum seekers undergoing the assessment process.

“Significant risk of recidivism”

At last month's trial, the Essex judge who sentenced the Ethiopian to 12 months in prison, with a five-year supervised release, said Hadush Kebatu posed a “significant risk of re-offending”.

After news of his wrongful release, the father of Hadush Kebatu's 14-year-old victim told Sky News: “The justice system has let us down.”

On the same day as Kebatu's conviction, another asylum seeker, Egyptian Abdelrahmen Adnan Abouelela, was sentenced to eight and a half years for raping a woman in Hyde Park in central London in 2023, RFI said in September.

Any asylum seeker sentenced to a prison sentence of more than 12 months with execution may be subject to an immediate deportation order after serving the sentence or part of it.

Political reactions

“Britain is falling apart,” Nigel Farage, the leader of the populist Reform UK party, who has made the fight against immigration his main election argument, reacted on the X network.

Moreover, these facts related to illegal immigration have the political effect of increasing the popularity of Reform UK, which is at the top of all opinion polls in recent months.

On Friday, as he announced an inquiry into the incident, Deputy Prime Minister David Lammy said he felt “outraged on behalf of the public”. He claimed the Labor Party had inherited “a collapsing prison system”, but still added there was “no excuse” for the wrongful release.

And Labor Prime Minister Keir Starmer said the release was “totally unacceptable” and that he was “appalled”.

The UK government's annual figures on the country's prisons show that 262 prisoners were released by mistake in the 12 months to March 2025, a 128% increase on the previous year.