UI2023003538

             The Respondent is a national of Kosovo born on the 11 th May 1977. On the 12 th May 2023 the First-tier Tribunal (Judge Barker) allowed, on human rights grounds, his appeal against a decision to deprive him of his British citizenship. The Secretary of State now has permission to appeal against that decision.

             I apologise for the length of time that the parties have had to wait for this decision. The fault for the delay is entirely mine.

             In November 2007 the Albanian government issued extradition proceedings against the Respondent. It turned out that approximately one year before his arrival in the United Kingdom Mr Murtati had been convicted in Albania of armed robbery. He had been sentenced in absentia on the 3rd of November 1998 to eleven and a half years in prison. He was extradited to Albania on the 15th of January 2009, and was sent to prison to begin his sentence.

             At the date that Mr Murtati was sent to prison in Albania he was a married man with three children. Sadly his wife was diagnosed with cancer not long after he was deported, and on the 7 th October 2012 she died. In his absence the children were taken into the care of the local authority.

             Following his release from prison in Albania in 2015 Mr Murtati came back to live in the United Kingdom and in September 2019 his children were returned to him.