London -
A Libyan convicted of 78 offences cannot be deported from Britain because he is an alcoholic.
Seven years after the man was first told he would be booted out of the country, a judge has finally ruled that it would breach his human rights.
In what is thought to be an unprecedented case, he successfully argued he would be tortured and imprisoned by the authorities in his homeland because drinking alcohol is illegal.
Judges rejected Home Secretary Theresa May’s attempt to deport the 53-year-old serial criminal because of the risk of “unacceptably savage” abuse he faced in Libya.
It means he will be able to continue his drink-fuelled offending spree in Britain. His case is estimated to have cost British taxpayers a six-figure sum, including the cost of police time, legal fees racked up by challenging his claims in the courts and the costs of keeping him in prison.
The case reignited the row over the ease with which alleged foreign criminals could exploit human rights laws.
Last night Peter Bone, Tory candidate for Wellingborough, said the case illustrated why Britain should scrap the Human Rights Act and replace it with a British Bill of Rights.
“This kind of things drives people mad,” he said. “On the doorstep they find cases like this outrageous. Few people will think this man should remain in the country. He has completely abused our hospitality.”
Despite insisting the Libyan had “behaved disgracefully” to rack up 78 crimes on 52 occasions, the Upper Immigration Tribunal said deporting him would violate the European Convention on Human Rights, incorporated into British law by the Human Rights Act.
It found that removing him would breach Article 3, the right to avoid inhumane or degrading treatment or punishment, and Article 8, the right to a private or family life.
In a written ruling, Judge Jonathan Perkins said: “Under the rule of militia [in Libya] the usual routine for a person found drinking was arrest, possible whipping and detention for a few days.”
Expert witnesses had claimed that there was “a chance of virtually permanent detention in the case of an habitual drunk”. Belal Ballali, a British-Libyan researcher, said “commercially produced alcohol is widely available in Tripoli” and “cheaply made “moonshine” is readily available and cheap to buy outside the capital”.
The man, who was granted anonymity by the courts and can only be identified by the initials “HU”, came to Britain in 1981 to study engineering.
Apart from a short period in Libya from August 1993 to October 1994, he has remained here ever since. He had spent “many years” trying to deal with his alcohol dependency. During that time he had been imprisoned for a string of offences “largely and possibly exclusively as a consequence of his alcoholism”, the judge ruled.
No details of his crimes were given but none of them involved sexual assault, violence or other serious law-breaking.
In July 2008, after giving him five warnings, the Home Office told “HU” he would be deported, but he appealed and won on the grounds that it would breach his human rights.
He continued to offend and a new deportation order was issued in January 2013.
An immigration court overturned that and yesterday it emerged that the department’s appeal had failed.
Daily Mail