An Afghan family who failed in an 11th-hour attempt to prevent their deportation from the UK has been removed from the country, the Home Office has confirmed.

Farid and Feriba Ahmadi and their two children are now being flown to Germany - the country where they first applied to become refugees - in a specially chartered plane.

Mr and Mrs Ahmadi had sought refuge at a mosque in Lye, near Stourbridge, West Midlands, but were forcibly removed by police who stormed the building.

They had been held at Harmondsworth detention centre near Heathrow since the raid three weeks ago.

Mental health

Pierre Makhlouf, the family lawyer, mounted a number of legal challenges in an effort to allow the family to stay.

The last legal move was a judicial review against deportation which concluded just after midnight on Wednesday with the judge ruling in favour of the Home Office.

When they deport me to Germany, maybe something very bad will happen with my children and with me

Feriba Ahmadi

Mr Makhlouf had argued that sending the family back to Germany would be detrimental to the mental health of Mrs Ahmadi and the children.

The children, aged four and six, have been made wards of court and cannot be named.

He said: "They were very distressed when I told them, Mrs Ahmadi was distraught and crying.

"Everyone in the campaign is very upset but they continue to support the family."

A private plane has been chartered to fly the Ahmadis from Birmingham to Munich, at a cost believed to be about �60,000.

Religious bigotry

Authorities there have agreed not to return them to Afghanistan, but to find them a home on humanitarian grounds.

Speaking from Harmondsworth, Mrs Ahmadi told the BBC World Service that she had been happy in Britain.

The raid on the mosque was widely condemned

"When they deport me to Germany, maybe something very bad will happen with my children and with me.

"I'm so stressed at the moment."

She added: "I know Germany is a good country, better than Afghanistan, but we are happy here."

Mr Ahmadi, 33, a mechanic, and his 24-year-old wife, who wants to train as a nurse, arrived in Germany after they fled Taleban-controlled Afghanistan in 2000.

Mr Ahmadi said he was tortured twice because he is the son of an army brigadier, prominent in the pre-Taleban regime.

They arrived in Germany and spent seven months in asylum camps, where they claim they faced racism and religious bigotry.

'Emotional harm'

Mrs Ahmadi suffered two breakdowns and was admitted to hospital twice, say her supporters.

Authorities there have agreed not to return them to Afghanistan, but to find them a home on humanitarian grounds.

Elane Heffernan, from the Committee to Defend Asylum Seekers, said the family had come to Britain because their only relatives were here.

"They thought this was a democratic and safe place to come but they were wrong," she said.

"Psychological reports, which the Home Office accepted at the hearing last night, have shown they will suffer emotional and traumatic harm by returning to Germany.

"Why are we doing this?"