Albanian crime boss avoids deportation after human rights claim
‘This is why we need urgent reform of the asylum system and human rights laws’
A DANGEROUS Albanian crime boss jailed for money laundering has been allowed to remain in the UK after claiming that Home Office attempts to expel him breached his human rights.
The Home Office sought to strip dual national Gjelosh Kolicaj, 42, of his British citizenship and deport him after he was jailed for six years for smuggling £8 million of his gang’s profits out of the UK in suitcases that he brought onto planes using his British passport.
He was described by the National Crime Agency (NCA) as having a “senior and controlling role” in an organised crime group in the UK. The NCA warned that he posed a threat to the public and would return to crime on his release from prison.
But immigration judges granted his appeal against the removal of his citizenship and deportation on the grounds that the Home Office failed to take sufficient account of his human rights and other claims in their decision.
Kolicaj gained dual Uk-albanian nationality in 2009 after entering the UK and marrying a British woman. He divorced her and married an Albanian woman in 2013 with whom he has two children. Both are British citizens after being born in the UK. His new wife, an Albanian national, is seeking indefinite leave to remain in Britain.
The decision has provoked a backlash. “This demonstrates why we need urgent reform of the asylum system and human rights laws to allow the rapid and effective deportation of dangerous criminals,” said a senior Tory MP.
The Albanian head of a non-governmental organisation said it was “another madness from the immigration courts”. “We see the removal of Albanians every day with legitimate business but not criminals who have used their British passports to conduct criminal activities,” he said. Kolicaj was convicted of money laundering in February 2018 after an investigation by the NCA. The decision to strip him of citizenship was taken in January 2021 after the NCA warned that Kolicaj and his brother, a co-conspirator, would “continue to pose a risk following completion of their sentences”.
A Home Office report concluded: “It is considered that depriving Kolicaj of his British citizenship would be conducive to the public good because it would contribute to preventing and deterring further criminality, in particular from the organised crime group of which he held a senior and controlling role.” Kolicaj appealed, claiming he had not been given a chance to challenge his risk of reoffending. He also claimed errors of law in the decision and a breach of his right to a family life under Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights.
The judges said these issues raised by Kolicaj had not “played any part in the [Home Office’s] decision making process. “Rather, the [Home Office] has progressed directly from [their] assessment of the seriousness of the offending to a conclusion that the appellant should be deprived of his citizenship without appreciating that [they] had a discretion to exercise based on all the circumstances of the case,” they ruled.