Claims he felt ‘dehumanised’
A West Lothian resident detained by the Home Office for deportation before being granted bail last week has said he feels “dehumanised” by the process.
Kweku Adoboli, who lives in West Calder, spent 36 days in a detention centre under threat of deportation to his birth country of Ghana, where he has not lived since he was four-years-old.
Kweku said: “You feel so dehumanised that when you walk out the door after 36 days you just ask why? When you go into the detention centre it’s just so dehumanising. Detention centre’s should be brought to an end.
“No one should have to go through what I’ve been through for 36 days, never mind the people that have been there for years, just for being born in a different country.
“I’ve been dealing with the Home Office for five years and I know the depths and extent they will go to to achieve their goal but the reason the detention centre was so harrowing was the sense of disempowerment.”
The 38- year- old was jailed for seven years in 2012 after being found guilty of fraud.
Despite living in the UK since he was 12, as a foreign national, Kweku is subject to automatic deportation under UK immigration law having been given more than a four year jail sentence.
Kweku spent threeand-a-half years in prison where he said he was a “model prisoner” before being released and moving to West Lothian on the advice of his best friends.
He now lives here with his girlfriend and is godfather to his friends’ two children.
Kweku said: “I’ve been here since 2015. I moved up here because of my best friends, who I’ve known since I was 20.
“When they came to visit me in prison they thought the best thing for me was to come and stay with them because Livingston is a safe space and a great place to build from.
“I live with my two godsons and they’ve known me all their lives. We live in West Calder and I drop them off at school. Everyone in the community knows who I am.”
Kweku insists that it is not because of where he is being sent but because of his ties to the UK that he should be allowed to stay.
He said: “It’s not about where I’m being sent to. Ghana is a wonderful country but my relationships are here. If I’m banished from the UK I won’t be able to come back.
“But you’re not only banished from the UK, you’re banished from the whole of the western world for life. It’s unimaginable really.”
Kweku was initially denied bail in September after being spared deportation by a legal intervention just hours before his scheduled flight to Ghana.
An application of bail was then granted by a judge at Hatton Cross Tribunal Centre last week. His case will be the subject of a judicial review, which could take months, but the ruling means the former trader has been able to return home to West Lothian pending the outcome.
Kweku has gained support from his local MP, Hannah Bardell, in his fight to stay in the UK.
The SNP MP for Livingston said: “This is a small win, and we do have a long way to go to win Kweku the right to stay in Scotland, but there is a very vocal and actively supportive cross party group of MPs and MSPs who are working hard on his behalf.”