Oral Answers to Questions

Stephen Timms Excerpts

Tuesday 18th October 2016 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Alok Sharma)]

My heart goes out to the families. I raised this case with Minister Akbar when I was in India in July, and I raised it again on 5 October with the Indian high commissioner to the UK. I know that my hon. Friend is working incredibly hard to highlight this issue and I look forward to meeting him and hon. Members representing the other families tomorrow.

[Stephen Timms (East Ham) (Lab)]

T3. My hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Steve McCabe) asked earlier about Londoner and British citizen Andy Tsege, a political dissident who was kidnapped in June 2014. In June this year, the Foreign Secretary’s predecessor announced in a press release that he had“secured assurances from the Ethiopian Government that Mr Tsege will be granted access to a lawyer”.Those assurances have not been honoured. Will the Foreign Secretary now formally request the release of Mr Tsege?

[Boris Johnson]

I have set out our position on Mr Tsege in an open letter on gov.uk. I cannot, I am afraid, comment further, because our handling of this case is the subject of ongoing legal proceedings.