An asylum seeker who set himself alight before his immigration hearing has died, police said last night.
Uddhav Bhandari, a Nepalese national who had been living in Edinburgh, doused himself in petrol and set himself alight earlier this month at the Asylum and Immigration Tribunal Centre in Glasgow's Bothwell Street.
The father of two fled Nepal six years ago but was facing a second immigration hearing which could have led to him being sent back to Nepal.
The proceedings in Glasgow on Wednesday, March 7 were to be heard on video link by three judges in London.
Tribunal staff made attempts to put out the flames with their clothes and he was taken to hospital with serious burns.
He had been scared of deportation to Nepal, where it is said he had exposed corruption in the police force in a newspaper article.
Robina Qureshi, director of Positive Action in Housing, a charity which works with ethnic minorities, said: "Uddhav Bhandari spent six years trying to seek refuge here and bring his wife and two kids over to this country. Forbidden to find paid work, he worked as a volunteer. He was a victim of an asylum policy that persecutes and tortures the victims of persecution and torture."
The news of Mr Bhandari's death came as a spokesman for the Unity Centre in Glasgow criticised a dawn raid on the Waku family in Cardonald, Glasgow.
Max Waku and his wife Onoya fled Congo in 2001 and have lived in Glasgow for six years. They have three children, Jean-Marc, 14, Grace, 11, and Genuine, 4, who was born in Scotland.
The spokesman for the Unity Centre said: "The children watched their dad being handcuffed and led out of the house to a waiting van. The rest of the family were then removed one by one from their home and put into waiting vans."
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