Will Albanian involved in trying to move £8 million cash from the UK in suitcases keep his British citizenship?

AN ALBANIAN money launderer who was involved in trying to move £8 million cash from the UK, could keep his British Citizenship if the Home Office fails to convince Supreme Court judges that its revocation was lawful.

Gjelosh Kolicaj, 44, (above) was born in Albania, but came to the UK in 2005 and was granted the controversail indefinite leave to remain.

On 5 February 2009, he was naturalised as a British citizen and became a dual national with Albian and British citizenship.

On 27 February 2018, Kolicaj was convicted, following a guilty plea, of conspiracy to remove the proceeds of criminal conduct from England and Wales.

The conspiracy involved the transportation of cash valued at just under £8 million from the UK to Albania.

He was jailed for six years for smuggling £8 million of his gang’s profits out of the UK in suitcases that he brought onto planes using his British passport.

The Home Secretary has a policy that a person may be deprived of their British citizenship under section 40(2) of the British National Act 1981 (“section 40(2)”) if they are found guilty in one of the most serious or high-profile cases of organised crime.

On 22 January 2021, then Home Secretary Priti Patel, served on Kolicaj a notice of her decision to deprive him of his British citizenship under section 40(2).

This was done only half an hour before serving the deprivation order on him, pursuant to the Secretary of State’s practice of giving short notice before depriving dual nationals of their British citizenship.

This practice prevents dual nationals from renouncing their original citizenship in response to the notice.

Such renunciation would bar a deprivation order as the Secretary of State is prohibited from making a person stateless under section 40(2).

Kolicaj appealed the deprivation decision to the First Tier Tribunal who dismissed the appeal. The Upper Tribunal allowed Mr Kolicaj’s appeal on the ground that the Secretary of State had failed to properly exercise her discretion. The Court of Appeal dismissed the Secretary of State’s appeal but on a different ground from the Upper Tribunal, namely that the decision was procedurally unfair as Kolicaj had not had the opportunity to make representations. The Court of Appeal held that the deprivation order must therefore be quashed. Current Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood now appeals to the Supreme Court.

The issues at stake are:

(1) Was it procedurally unfair for the Secretary of State for the Home Department to deprive Mr Kolicaj of his British citizenship without affording him an opportunity to make representations?

(2) Did the Court of Appeal act in excess of jurisdiction by quashing the deprivation order made against Mr Kolicaj?

Judgement in the case will be given later this month.