Albanian Murderer Allowed to Stay in UK to Continue Asylum Application

A group of people thought to be migrants are escorted by Police and Border Force officers
Gareth Fuller/PA Images via Getty Images
Kurt Zindulka

A convicted Albanian murderer who arrived illegally by boat in Britain has been granted permission by a local immigration court to pursue an asylum claim.

Mariglen Shoshari, a 31-year-old convicted murderer from Albania who arrived in Britain after crossing the English Channel illegally, will be allowed to try to claim asylum in the United Kingdom, despite Albania being considered a safe country by the British government.

Upon reaching British soil in October, Shoshari was brought to the Mansion asylum centre whereupon he was given the opportunity to apply for asylum, the local KentOnline reported.

In a questionnaire filled out by the Albanian migrant, he admitted that had previously been convicted of murder and firearms offences in Greece in 2012. Shoshari received an 18-and-a-half-year sentence but was evidently set free after serving less than half of his sentence.

After admitting to his previous convictions, he was charged with arriving in the United Komgdp, without valid entry clearance — a charge that all illegal immigrants should theoretically be charged with but rarely are.

On Wednesday, Shoshari appeared before the Folkestone Magistrates’ Court where he plead guilty to the charge. While he was sentenced to 60 days in jail and a fine of £154 upon his release, the court further decided to allow the illegal migrant murderer to remain in the country while his asylum claim is processed.

Commenting on the case, Brexit leader Nigel Farage said: “This shows the madness that we are living through. The Tories have failed us all.”

The issue of illegal immigration from Albania has become a hot-button issue given the massive surge in illegal arrivals from the Muslim-majority country in Europe’s Balkans region.

Last month, Clandestine Channel Threat Commander Dan O’Mahoney revealed that, so far this year, over 12,000 illegal boat migrants have come from Albania by boat, up from just 50 in 2020 and 800 last year.

The border official went on to note that of the arrivals this year, approximately 10,000 have been single, adult men, which he said represented about two per cent of the “entire adult male population” of Albania between the ages of 20 and 40.

According to a BBC investigation, Albanian drug gangs are using the migrant camps on the French coast as areas to recruit new hires, offering to pay for the migrants to buy off people-smugglers to cross the English Channel in exchange for work in underground drug and crime networks in Britain.

An Albanian illegal migrant told the broadcaster that he had been personally approached by Albanian recruiters on multiple occasions, saying: “They offered lots of things — that they would pay for the trip, that there would be a job for me [in the UK] — but I wasn’t interested.”

The migrant said that he believed that most of the other young men he met in the camp in Dunkirk would later go on to work in Albanian-controlled marijuana or cocaine operations.

This is perhaps unsurprising, given the prevalence of Albanian criminals in the United Kingdom already, with official statistics revealing that Albanians currently comprise the single-largest population of foreign criminals in British prisons.

Yet Albanian prime minister Edi Rama said that the British government should look to its own “failed policies on borders and on crime” rather than “scapegoating” his countrymen for Britain’s migrant crisis.

“The Channel is not geographically and politically under the responsibility of the Albanian government,” he told the BBC. “Countries of origin should not be called in the moment that the problem is in the newspapers. It’s too easy to be the British prime minister and go on TV and show your muscles, and [point to] Albania and Albanians.”

This criticism is not novel, with France also castigating the British for allowing pull factors such as its black market economy to fester and attract more illegal arrivals.

Follow Kurt Zindulka on Twitter here @KurtZindulka

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