Blackmail trial judge dies at 64

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Mohammed Ilyas Khan, the immigration judge caught up in a 2006 blackmail trial involving an illegally employed Brazilian cleaner, has died.

The 64-year-old, from north London, retired as a judge on Saturday and died a day later.

His 41-year legal career was marred by the 2006 trial at which it emerged he had an affair with his cleaner after ending a relationship with a colleague.

Justice Secretary Jack Straw was said to be saddened to learn of the death.

Mr Khan was called to the Bar in 1968, and rose through the ranks of assistant recorder, recorder and immigration adjudicator, to designated immigration judge in 2005.

At the time of the blackmail trial a year later, Mr Khan was employed by the Asylum and Immigration Tribunal.

'Poor judgment'

Roselane Driza, of south London, was accused of blackmailing Judge J, an unnamed female judge colleague with whom Mr Khan had had a relationship, and stealing intimate videos from Mr Khan.

Miss Driza was convicted of blackmail and theft and jailed in 2006. She later won an appeal against all the convictions.

In the meantime, the judicial watchdog, the Office for Judicial Complaints (OJC), launched an investigation into Mr Khan's conduct but abandoned it prematurely because of his ill health.

Mr Khan did not lose his job but Lord Chief Justice, Lord Phillips of Worth Matravers, did say he had shown "poor judgment" by employing Miss Driza without checking her immigration status.

During the OJC investigation, Mr Khan did not sit as a judge and subsequently was on sick leave from May 2008.