Thug laughs off shooting
A FOREIGN criminal facing deportation for shooting a man in the face is unrepentant – and joked: ‘At worst it would have taken his eye out.’
Aleksandrs Kolosovs was jailed for the ‘calculated and cowardly’ assault that left his victim needing surgery to remove pellets from his skull.
He was later ordered to be removed to his native Latvia but has been granted taxpayers’ money to fight the deportation.
The 32-year-old is still at large and has twice tried and failed to overturn the removal order.
On Tuesday he returned to court to begin a third publicly-funded bid to challenge his deportation. Kolosovs said he had every right to be here and shooting a man in the face was not a strong enough reason to deport him.
At his Aberdeen flat in January 2014, Kolosovs aimed shots at 37-year-old John Cooper with a replica revolver. He was convicted of assault to injury and jailed for a year and eight months.
Last week, however, the Latvian said of the replica revolver used: ‘It’s enough to penetrate the skin, at worst it would take the eye out.’
Kolosovs’ case is now expected to heard yet again in the coming months.
Tory MSP Alex Johnstone said: ‘This is a dangerous criminal and his repeated bad behaviour is proof that he should be deported.’
A Home Office spokesman declined to comment on the case but said: ‘Foreign nationals who abuse our hospitality by committing crimes in the UK should be in no doubt of our determination to deport them.’