Albania’s most violent criminals to be deported
Inmates who agree to a transfer scheme to Balkans have year cut off sentence plus £1,500 sweetener
UP TO 200 of Albania’s most dangerous criminals are to be deported from Britain to serve the rest of their jail sentences in Albanian prisons under a multimillion pound deal funded by the UK taxpayer.
Seventeen “lifers”, including the murderer of schoolteacher Sabina Nessa, are expected to be the first of the murderers, gangsters and drug warlords to be deported. Koci Selamaj was jailed for life with a minimum sentence of 36 years for beating and strangling Sabina in a park in south east London. He has so far served only two years, which would mean Britain paying the Albanians to imprison him for the remaining 34 years of his sentence.
The move follows months of secret negotiations between Ministry of Justice (MOJ) officials in both countries after Rishi Sunak, the Prime Minister, first discussed the plan with Edi Rama, Albania’s prime minister, in talks in Downing Street in March.
It is understood the governments are close to agreement after Albania pushed for the UK to fund their incarceration for their full jail terms and Britain sought assurances that the country’s prisons were up to standard, to avoid any human rights claims, and that they had enough places in their jails.
Under a separate agreement, Albanian criminals are also being released up to a year early from their jail sentences and given £1,500 resettlement grants if they agree to be deported and never return to Britain.
Albanians account for the largest number of foreign inmates in prisons in England and Wales, with 1,336 held behind bars at the end of last year.
Only Albanians jailed for more than four years in the UK will be eligible for the prison transfer scheme which builds on an agreement that came into force last May. It stipulated that deported criminals must serve the full sentence handed down by British judges and bars them from returning.
Officials believe the deal will save Britain money as costs of imprisonment in Albania are a fraction of those in the UK. The cost of holding Selamaj for another 34 years would be £57,000 a year in a high security jail, totalling £1.9million. It can be as little as £10,000 a year in Albania.
Their removal will help ease the crisis of prison overcrowding which has forced the MOJ to hold offenders in police cells.
However, Albania has made it clear it will not receive any prisoner from Britain unless a sum is agreed in advance for the full term of their sentence.
It is understood the MOJ has identified all the Albanians serving life sentences who are intended to be the first transferred.
They are thought to include two burglars who murdered a man in an attempt to steal drugs, a conman who murdered an elderly couple and an Albanian who killed a drug dealer.
An MOJ spokesman said: “The Government continues to work closely with the Albanian Government, including on the removal of Albanian offenders through the Transfer Agreement.”
Under the resettlement scheme, Albanians are released early and given a grant of up to £1,500 if they agree not to appeal their deportation. A government document states the scheme is “a financial incentive” offered to foreign prisoners “on the proviso that they co-operate with deportation and waive their right to appeal against it”.
An Albanian, aged 30, who was allowed to return to his homeland after serving two years of a six-year jail sentence for drug offences told the BBC: “Many people decided to come back because of [the offer]. One year is too much in prison.”
He was deported under the Early Release Scheme (ERS), used for foreign prisoners of all nationalities. ERS does not require the consent of prisoners.