An Afghan family who have been fighting to stay in the UK have been deported to Germany.

Farid and Feriba Ahmadi and their two children were taken from Harmondsworth Detention Centre, near Heathrow, to an undisclosed airport on Wednesday morning.

The Home Office confirmed they had been put on a flight to Munich at 0950 BST.

The move came after immigration lawyers trying to prevent their deportation failed in a last minute attempt to block the government's plans.

Safe haven

Home Office minister Beverley Hughes, described the Ahmadi's case as "difficult" but said the Home Office had a duty to maintain "effective and credible" immigration controls.

In a statement she said: "Seeking asylum must be about reaching a safe haven, not deciding on a destination of choice.

The raid on the mosque was widely condemned

"Under the Dublin Convention, where an asylum seeker has made an application in another EU member state, that country takes responsibility for considering the claim.

"The Ahmadi family made their application for asylum in Germany, they have residency there and Germany has agreed to accept them back.

"We are confident that Germany's treatment of the family's asylum application was, and will continue to be, fully compliant with its international obligations."

Supporters of the family had gathered at Birmingham International Airport believing the Ahmadis would be taken there to leave the UK.

But instead, the family were taken to an undisclosed airport where they boarded a private plane to Munich, Germany.

They arrived in Germany at about 1130 BST and are being interviewed by immigration officials at the airport.

The Ahmadis were said to be well but "very tired and very stressed".

The Ahmadi children, with their identities hidden

It is expected they will be taken to a regional immigration office where they will be given money for food and accommodation.

Paul Rowlands, who, with his partner Soraya Walton, had tried to make the children wards of court, vowed to follow the family to the "ends of the earth".

He said the fight for the Ahmadis right to stay in Britain had just begun and campaigners would continue their battle in Germany.

Mr Rowlands, 39, from Stourbridge, West Midlands, said: "This is not the end, it is the start.

"We have vowed to follow them to the end of the earth to make them happy.

"What we are committed to doing is making sure that the family is able to bring up their children in a normal family environment where they have not got to suffer anymore."

Centre protest

A last minute legal challenge by the Ahmadis immigration lawyer, Pierre Makhlouf, failed after a judge ruled in favour of the Home Office just after midnight on Wednesday.

The family was then taken from Harmondsworth detention centre, near Heathrow, at 0730 BST in a blacked-out Ford Transit vans followed by an estate car and a police escort.

Protesters tried to block the convoy's path but were moved out of the way by police.

Mr Makhlouf said the family had been granted humanitarian status allowing them to live legally in Germany.

"In that context, it would be possible for us to make an application to the Home Office for the family to have the status transferred to this country," he said.

The couple had been detained in the centre for three weeks since they were forcibly removed from the mosque in Lye, near Stourbridge, where they had taken refuge.

The family fled Afghanistan in 2000 claiming they had suffered torture and abuse under the Taleban regime.