Albanian drug dealer is allowed back on the streets after string of ‘vexatious’ asylum claims
- Domeniko Dedaj, 30, was jailed after police found 1.2kg of cocaine at his home
- Home Office officials told a tribunal his asylum claims may be ‘vexatious’
A convicted Albanian drug dealer set for deportation has been allowed back on to the streets after making a string of asylum claims.
Domeniko Dedaj, 30, claimed he was trafficked in a series of applications that the Home Office warned may be ‘vexatious’ attempts to ‘frustrate removal’.
But it will now take at least six months to deal with the paperwork, forcing an asylum judge to grant him bail last month despite fears he will reoffend or abscond.
Dedaj was jailed at Lewes Crown Court for five years and eight months in 2020 after police discovered 1.2kg of cocaine and £27,000 in cash hidden at his home in Broadwater, West Sussex.
He was eligible for deportation after serving half his sentence for money laundering and drug dealing but has now been freed from HMP Maidstone and is understood to be living in Liverpool.
Domeniko Dedaj, 30, was jailed for five years and eight months in 2020 after police discovered 1.2kg of cocaine and £27,000 in cash at his West Sussex home
Matt Walter, for the Home Office, told the Asylum Tribunal Centre in central London that Dedaj had been in an immigration detention centre for two months awaiting deportation.
He said: ‘Mr Dedaj has now submitted a third asylum claim. Whether that claim is there to frustrate removal and is effectively a vexatious one will come out in the wash, no doubt.’
Krystelle Wass, for Dedaj, said his claim involves ‘an element of trafficking’, but mostly concerns ‘his risk of returning to Albania owing to debts’.
Mr Walter said the Home Secretary ‘wants to be pragmatic’ given the circumstances and called for Dedaj to ‘be subjected to mandatory tagging’.
Judge Charlotte Welsh said there was a risk Dedaj, pictured, would commit further offences and ‘cause harm to the public’. She also feared he could abscond.
The judge told him: ‘However, you have an outstanding asylum claim which… will take at least six months to determine. The appropriate course is to grant you bail… with conditions designed to reduce the risks that I have outlined.’
Dedaj must wear an electronic tag and check in each day with the Home Office.
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