Rapist who can’t be deported to Albania due to Home Office
A BOGUS asylum seeker who raped a girl cannot be stripped of British citizenship because of bungling Home Office officials.
Gjin Gjergji, now 52, arrived in the UK in 2000 claiming to be fleeing war-torn Kosovo, and has lived on welfare handouts ever since.
But after his rape conviction in 2017 it emerged he was among hundreds of Albanians who had falsely claimed to be Kosovan in order to win refugee status.
The Home Office attempted to revoke Gjergji’s British passport in 2019, so that after serving his six-year sentence for the attack on the 15-year- old he could be returned to Albania – deemed a ‘safe’ European country by the Government. However, because officials had suspected as early as 2005 that Gjergji was Albanian – when his wife applied to join him in the UK – yet failed to take any action, his appeal to an immigration tribunal has now concluded it would be ‘unfair’ to strip him of British citizenship.
While the decision is likely to horrify his victim and her family, Audi-driving Gjergji, who has settled in east London, was unapologetic when confronted by the Daily Mail. He boasted: ‘I’m all right, I’ve got no worries here. I came to the UK because I wanted a better life, and I’ve found it.’
Gjergji said he has a right to stay in the UK because he has a family here and his native Albania is dangerous. ‘There are lots of bad people there,’ he added.
Allowing his appeal, Judge Therese Kamara ruled that evidence of Gjergji’s true nationality had been ‘either disregarded or mishandled’, adding: ‘It is unfair for the Home Office to now rely on this information as a basis for depriving Gjergji of citizenship.’
A Home Office spokesman said last night: ‘We do not routinely comment on individual cases.’