AN IRANIAN asylum seeker who embarked on a desperate hunger strike has gone to ground in London.

Mohammed Reza Solymanyzadeh, 29, fled to the capital after grabbing headlines in August this year when he went on hunger strike for more than a week at his Shear Brow home in protest of the way asylum seekers were being treated in the UK.

His friends fear he is likely to be working in London's black market trade.

Mohammed fled Iran after he had an extra-marital affair, which is against Sharia law, and he was sentenced to be stoned to death.

On escaping to the UK he applied for asylum in Blackburn in March 2002 but his application was refused in the beginning of August this year on asylum and human rights grounds.

In protest, he claimed he went without food and water for eight days but was then dramatically sectioned under the Mental Health Act and taken to Queen's Park Hospital.

There he accepted food and was discharged the next day after no evidence of mental illness was found.

Just two days after his release Mohammed visited a friend in London and did not return to Blackburn.

Ribble Valley MP Nigel Evans said the case highlighted fundamental flaws in the asylum system and called for a review.

He added: "I believe the system has got to be far more rigid.

"Once you have been refused an asylum and lost an appeal you should be returned to your country and quickly.

"The authorities will have no chance of finding him in London.

"The vast majority whose asylum application is turned down disappear and the government is not taking it seriously enough."

Mohammed's friend and spokesman, Saeed, who supported him throughout his ordeal, said he was likely to be working in London's black market as an illegal asylum-seeker with others in a similar predicament.

Saeed said: "He left Blackburn for his own safety because his face was so well known he thought he might become a target of racists.

"He was supposed to get in touch with me and come back here after a while when the dust had settled but he hasn't.

"He is likely to be working in that illegal sector of the economy where they are exploited."

Saeed said he supported Mohammed because there were flaws in his asylum application and he believed he should have been granted permission to stay.

Saeed said Mohammed was from a respectable family in Iran and his father is a doctor.

His mother and two sisters in Iran had been reduced to tears over his plight.

The Home Office said that Mohammed would be prosecuted if he was found but said that not all Iranian asylum seekers were deported to their home country because of "human rights issues"

A spokesman said: "If someone is in the UK illegally they are guilty of immigration offences and action will be taken against that person if he is ever found.

"Iran does have human rights issues.

"If it is not safe for an asylum seeker to return to their country they can be granted exceptional leave to remain.

"However, we can, and have, removed people back to Iran."