Former bank trader faces deportation

A former bank trader who is being threatened with deportation to a country he left 34 years ago wants to be seen as human and not a “test case”.

Kweku Adoboli, who now lives in Livingston, has been detained at the Dungavel Immigration Removal Centre, a “black hole” of a place. He was transported to the 19th century hunting lodge surrounded by wire fences in South Lanarkshire last Monday and remains there indefinitely. The 38-year-old considers himself to be British after moving to Yorkshire at 12 years old to attend boarding school. He left Ghana at four years old with his parents. He said: “Citizenship isn’t defined by a piece of paper, it’s defined by your relationships and your contribution to society.”

In 2012 Mr Kweku was jailed for two counts of fraud that resulted in losses of £1.4 billion for Swiss banking group UBS, spending four years in jail. Under strict immigration laws foreign nationals who are jailed for longer than four years are subject to automatic deportation unless they can argue there are compelling reasons for them to stay.

Immigration lawyer Jacqueline Mckenzie has worked 0 Kweku Adoboli considers himself to be British

tirelessly on Mr Kweku’s case preparing and presenting a 300-page dossier of arguments and evidence that he should remain in the UK. Mr Kweku said: “My family is here. My girlfriend is here.”

Mr Kweku moved to Scotland to live with friends from university following his release from prison in 2015. If he is deported, Mr Kweku would not be allowed to re-enter the country and could be barred from the rest of Europe and North America.

The Home Office have said that Mr Kweku presents a ‘high risk of harm to the UK public’. Risk assessments carried out on him by his probation officers and other prison officials categorised him as ‘very low risk’.