Express
June 24, 2014
A POSTMAN jailed for stealing mail as part of a £500,000 credit card fraud cannot be deported because of European human rights legislation.
Harnault Hospice Kassi, 39, stole dozens of letters and parcels in what the Home Office described as a “serious breach of trust”.
But despite being jailed for nearly three years, the Ivory Coast-born thief will not be deported because he is the father of a child in this country.
An immigration tribunal ruled he cannot be returned to Africa, citing Kassi’s right to family life under Article 8 of the European Convention of Human Rights (ECHR).
An appeal by the Home Secretary was rejected by the Upper Tribunal Immigration and Asylum Chamber in April.
Ukip MEP Steven Woolfe said: “Once again the Human Rights Act makes a mockery of the British justice system. The Government should have the final say over deportations in this country.
“It will infuriate a great many people to learn that taxpayers’ money is being spent protecting a known criminal rather than deporting him.
“Until we leave the ECHR which is so regularly abused by those wanting to flaunt the protections designed to defend victims of injustice, cases like this will continue to be commonplace.”
Kassi, who had been working for the Royal Mail as a van driver responsible for the delivery of “high-value” items, was jailed in 2012 after admitting conspiracy to steal and three counts relating to possession of identity documents.
He was sentenced to two years and nine months in prison and was released after 18 months.
Kingston Crown Court in Surrey heard as part of Operation Goddard – a probe into theft and fraud in south-east London – he was charged with six others in 2011. Kassi had been initially granted residence in the UK in 2002 after marrying a Belgian woman.
But he began an affair with a French woman named Monique Mandeng and just five months into his marriage she gave birth to their first child in France.