If Italy can deport criminals why can’t the UK?

Last night (1st) the Italian president, Giorgio Napolitano, signed through a decree put together in an emergency session of Romano Prodi’s centre-left cabinet that will allow prefects - the local representatives of the interior ministry - to expel summarily the citizens of other EU states if they are judged a threat to public security. The prologue to the new measure makes it clear it is aimed at Romanians.

Officials in Brussels said the Italian government appeared to be within the terms of a European directive that allows member states to expel citizens of other EU countries if they are a threat to public health, public security, or have insufficient means.

This bold move by the Italians to safeguard the security and public health of the Italian electorate is in direct contrast to the ridiculous situation maintained by the human rights industry here in the UK which gives more consideration to the individual criminal than the broader population.

High Court refusal

Just 48hrs ago a senior High Court judge refused a government request to reconsider a tribunal’s decision to prevent a teacher’s killer being deported to Italy.

Learco Chindamo, the murderer of London head teacher Philip Lawrence, could be released from prison next year. An immigration tribunal had ruled that Chindamo, jailed in 1996, could not be deported when he is freed.

The government wanted to challenge the ruling but the judge refused to allow the case to be reconsidered.

Italian-born Chindamo, now 27, stabbed Mr. Lawrence at the gates of his west London school when he was 15. Mr Lawrence was trying to protect another pupil at the time of the incident.

In Wednesday’s ruling in the High Court, Mr Justice Collins, upheld the Asylum and Immigration Tribunal’s decision that Chindamo cannot be deported on release, when he becomes eligible for parole next year.

He said: “There is no error of law in the careful determination of the tribunal.“

The judge emphasised his decision was mainly based on EU regulations and the fact that it would be “disproportionate“ to remove Chindamo, as an EU citizen, under those regulations.

Although he was born in Italy, Chindamo has lived in the UK since the age of six. The Asylum and Immigration Tribunal ruled in August that while Chindamo had committed an extremely serious crime, he no longer posed a serious threat to society.

It said it had seen several reports of Chindamo’s conduct in detention, saying he had made “a real effort to put his past behaviour behind him and had impressed those responsible for his care with his genuine remorse“.

The Home Office has thrown in the towel as it has no more legal avenues to follow, but is “extremely disappointed“ with the High Court’s judgment.

A spokesman said: “We appealed to the High Court because we believe that all foreign nationals who commit a serious crime should be deported from the UK.

“This judgment will not stop us pursuing deportation against all foreign nationals who commit a serious crime.“

Three-quarters on the run

Although Immigration Minister Liam Byrne claims to be talking tough and wants foreign prisoners automatically deported even Labour’s own official figures reveal that more than three-quarters of the convicts involved in the foreign prisoner scandal are still at large in Britain.

The group - who include sex attackers and violent thugs - should have been automatically considered for deportation on release from prison.

Instead, they were allowed to walk free after a series of Home Office blunders.

Figures released to MPs reveal that just 226 of the 1,013 criminals mistakenly freed in the scandal have been removed from the country.

Some 148 have not even been traced more than a year after the controversy first broke. And in the past six weeks, only one of the missing criminals has been located.
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