A MAJOR breakthrough has been achieved for the survivors of the tragic stabbings in a Glasgow hotel two years ago.

Refugee rights activists have spent the two years since “knocking on every door” to get a full public hearing so the UK Government and its contractors could “learn the lessons” from the attack at the Park Inn hotel in the city.

Now they have been granted a hearing before the High Court of Justice in London to make their case to force the Home Office into holding a public inquiry into the tragedy.

Dylan Fotoohi is one of the founders of Refugees for Justice and has hailed the breakthrough as a “great relief” for those involved.

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As yet, no date has been set for a trial, which will see Sheroy Zaq, a lawyer with Duncan Law Solicitors, take on the Government and demand it be forced into a full public inquiry which hears from the victims.

Fotoohi believes the brutal attack was a “direct result” of the “inhumane” conditions asylum seekers endured during the first wave of the coronavirus pandemic.

Asylum seekers across the UK were housed in hotels by contractor Mears Group on behalf of the Home Office when Covid struck because lockdown had severely curbed the availability of accommodation.

Fotoohi told the Sunday National: “We were seeing how inhumane the conditions of the hotels were.

“They were telling us they were suicidal, tired.”

Fotoohi said a public inquiry was vital for “justice to be served for people who lived in those conditions”.

He claimed neither the Home Office nor their contractor Mears Group had learned from the tragedy.

Zaq said: “The Home Office conducted their own internal investigation and didn’t publish the findings.”

This raised fears that “nothing [had] been done and these things [could] happen again”.

“The longer you wait, the more the memories fade and the more evidence disappears and any investigation that does take place will be rendered ineffective,” Zaq added.

“There has been no public or transparent investigation into what happened and there has been no victim participation.

“What we’re gunning for is an inquiry into what happened to make sure it doesn’t happen again.”

Badreddin Abadlla Adam stabbed six people at the city centre hotel which was being used to house asylum seekers on June 26, 2020 before he was shot dead by armed cops.

He was the only person who died in the attack, though Constable David Whyte was left fighting for his life after he was stabbed.

While the stabbings took place in Scotland, the responsibility for a public inquiry lies with the UK Government – not the administration in Edinburgh.

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A UK Government spokesperson said: “The Home Office’s first priority after this horrific incident was supporting the people affected.

“Our New Plan for Immigration, which is going through Parliament now, will fix the broken asylum system, enabling us to grant protection to those entitled to it and to remove those with no right to be here more quickly.”

A spokesperson for Mears Group said hotels have not been used to house asylum seekers in Glasgow since the end of last summer except for one to quarantine new arrivals but were in use throughout the rest of Scotland.

He added: “Where hotels are being used we have been working very closely and positively with local authorities and with other partners, including health and welfare teams and NGOs to provide support to service users.”