LuaLua spearheads asylum campaign

Togo's Olympio Coffi (L) tackles DR Congo's Lomana Lualua during an African Nation Cup match in January 2002. LuaLua is leading a campaign to save an asylum seeker from being deported from the United Kingdom.

Portsmouth's Congo international Lomana LuaLua is leading a campaign to save an asylum seeker from being deported from the United Kingdom.

Clinical biologist Willy Mpasi Mutwadi fled to England two years ago after, he says, having a bounty put on his head for refusing to take part in a government plot to eliminate opposition politicians.

Father-of-four Mutwadi insists he was left with no option but to abandon his wife and children in Congo, where his younger brother Kakesa has already been shot dead.

Mutwadi, 42, faces being sent back to the war-torn African country after Britain's Home Office rejected his plea for asylum.

Now LuaLua has belied the stereotypical image that says all footballers are interested in is their next pay packet, by throwing his weight behind the battle to keep his compatriot in the United Kingdom.

The Premiership player, who grew up in the Democratic Republic of Congo capital of Kinshasa and was himself taken into Britain as an illegal immigrant by his father when he was 10-years-old, said: "If Willy is forced to go back to Congo it will be like putting him on death row.

"It would be a tragedy if this remarkable, humble and godly man was forcibly returned to face the retribution of the security services for having refused to commit murder," the 24-year-old striker added here Tuesday.

"He has already lost his brother and does not know if his wife and four boys are dead or alive," insisted LuaLua, who made his name in English football with Newcastle and was formerly captain of the Congo national side.

"He and his family have suffered enough at the hands of the cruel people who are in charge of my beloved country.

"He deserves the right to try and rebuild what is left of his life safe from the threat of execution.

"Nobody can imagine the pain he has suffered and if he is forced to return home all his sacrifices will count for nothing.

"I am here to raise the profile of the campaign and tell the world about Willy's plight. I will do all I can to save him."

Mutwadi left Congo two years ago because, he said, he'd refused an order to administer lethal injections to president Joseph Kabila's political rivals.

He tried to claim political asylum after being smuggled into Britain using false papers on a flight to Heathrow.

But his application was refused and he spent 19 months locked up at Haslar Immigration Removal Centre in Gosport, near Portsmouth, on England's south coast.

Mutwadi added his wife Rita Kindembe, 37, and sons Give, 11, Daniel, eight, Gabrielle, six and Freddy, three, were all abducted before managing to escape and have been in hiding for over a year.

He said: "I do not deserve all that has happened to me and want an end to this nightmare. My life will never be the same again but I just want the freedom to live.

"I cannot thank Lomana enough for helping with my campaign and will be eternally grateful for everything he has done."

Mutwadi was nearly expelled from England last November before an application for a judicial review was approved at the eleventh hour. The date for the judicial review has yet to be set.

He added: "I know that if I stay in England I will never see my family again, but if I go back to Congo I will be killed."