Pat Dollard | Young Americans

Iraqi interpreters and other key support staff who have risked their lives to work for Britain are to be allowed to settle in the United Kingdom, The Times has learnt.

Hundreds of interpreters and their families are to be given assistance to leave Iraq, where they live under fear of death squads because they collaborated with British forces. Those wishing to remain in Iraq or relocate to neighbouring countries will be helped to resettle.

After a two-month campaign by The Times, Gordon Brown is set to announce that interpreters who have worked for the British Government for 12 months will be given the opportunity of asylum in Britain.

The offer also applies retrospectively to interpreters who worked for the Government but have ceased to do so. Government sources have disclosed that a few hundred vital support staff would also be helped, although they declined to give details.

Diplomatic sources have told The Times that the decision will meet the demands of those who argued that action must be taken to prevent the interpreters and their families facing persecution and possible death when British Forces withdraw.

The cost of the move is expected to be met in the Comprehensive Spending Review, which will be unveiled by Alistair Darling, the Chancellor, on Tuesday, but it is assumed that the Prime Minister will refer to it in his Commons statement on Iraq on Monday. Those deciding against seeking asylum in Britain will be given assistance with relocation and travel expenses in the way that British civil servants would.

The Government’s U-turn comes after The Times revealed that it had ignored personal appeals from senior army officers in Basra to relax asylum regulations and make special arrangements for Iraqis whose loyal services have put their lives at risk.

There was mounting evidence of a campaign by militants to target “collaborators” as British forces prepare to leave. Scores of interpreters and other locally engaged staff working for the coalition have been kidnapped, tortured and murdered over the past four years. But officials insisted that there could be no special favours for the interpreters.

Last month Denmark granted asylum to 60 former Iraqi staff and their families before its forces withdrew from the south. The US has said it will take in 7,000 Iraqis this year, including former employees.