Despite Criminal Record, London Court Rules Nigerian Man Can’t Be Deported

A London Court of Appeal ruled yesterday that a 32-year-old Nigerian immigrant in the UK simply identified as “AA” cannot be deported despite his conviction on drug charges.

UK Home Office—the country’s immigration agency—had sought AA’s deportation to Nigeria after he served 4.5 years in jail for conspiracy to sell cocaine in 2013.

A tribunal had initially ruled that deportation would disproportionately interfere with his partner and children’s right to respect for family life, and that he was “most unlikely” to reoffend.

The Home Office went on appeal on the basis of existing laws to the effect that a convicted immigrant is liable to deportation upon serving term. Appeal Court ruled that the man be removed.

The man then challenged that ruling on his own appeal and won with yesterday’s verdict.

Affirming that the convict was unlikely to reoffend, one of the Appeal Court’s judges Lord Justice Popplewell said the convict’s “steps after release to rehabilitate himself, his changed family circumstances, and his own evidence of his current attitude towards his offending, entitled the judge (tribunal judge) to conclude that he was most unlikely to reoffend.”

Lord Popplewell concluded that Mr A.A.’s circumstances outweighed “public interest in his deportation.”

It is not clear whether further appeal can or will be brought against him. Sections of the UK public and media consumers are outraged by the ruling, saying the country’s judicial system is too lenient to foreign criminals.