Albanian heist member fights to be repatriated
Robber wants to serve rest of sentence in home country
An Albanian robber jailed for Britain’s biggest ever cash heist is fighting for the right to do his time in his home country.
But the government is trying to block the move amid fears he could get out early and get his hands on the missing millions.
Jetmir Bucpapa, 35, was one of four men jailed in 2008 for the notorious £53 million raid on the Securitas depot in Tonbridge.
Staff were trussed up and locked in cages, a child kidnapped, and threats made before the gang got away with the loot.
Bucpapa was jailed for 30 years, but £32 million of the stolen cash has still not been found.
He is now fighting at the High Court to be transferred to an Albanian prison to be closer to his family.
Refusing to authorise his transfer, former Justice Secretary Liz Truss said previously the fact he could get out almost four years early in Albania and the money has not been recovered justified keeping him in a UK prison.
Speaking for the government in court, barrister Christopher Knight said Bucpapa had been part of a gang behind a huge robbery..
“The secretary of state is entitled to have regard to the fact of the unrecovered money and the risk he may benefit from this money to some degree,” he said.
“That is the reason people participate in armed robberies after all.”
Bucpapa applied for the move last year, but it was refused in a personally made decision by Mrs Truss, leading to the High Court challenge.
His lawyers say the refusal is wrong because it is inconsistent with every other case involving an Albanian prisoner wanting to go home. Of 17 previous cases, some of them brutal murderers, not one had been refused transfer to an Albanian prison, said Philip Havers QC.
Bucpapa had been ordered to hand over a nominal £1 under a confiscation order, and there was no chance of him getting his hands on the missing cash, he added.
“He feels he has been treated unfairly,” Mr Havers told Judge Martin McKenna.
The judge has reserved his decision and will give his ruling later.