Government loses Lawrence killer appeal

Government loses Lawrence killer appeal
14/09/2007 13:09

Government loses Lawrence killer appeal Government loses Lawrence killer appeal

The Home Office said on Friday it had lost a second attempt to deport the Italian-born killer of headmaster Philip Lawrence and would now appeal to the High Court.

Learco Chindamo, 26, won an appeal last month which allowed him to stay in Britain at the end of his sentence for the murder of the 48-year-old teacher outside a London school in 1995.

Killer deportation appeal blocked.

Chindamo's lawyers had used human rights laws to challenge a government attempt to deport him to Italy.

Immigration Minister Liam Byrne said he was very disappointed by the Asylum and Immigration Tribunal's decision to refuse the government's appeal of its earlier ruling.

He said he had instructed officials to apply immediately to the High Court to have the original decision reconsidered.

"The Home Office believes the AIT provided insufficient detail to justify rejecting deportation in this case and gave insufficient weight to the seriousness of Chindamo's original offence when deciding whether he remains a threat to society," Byrne said in a statement.

"Foreign nationals who commit serious crimes should be automatically deported," he said.

Chindamo has not lived in Italy since he was five, has no connections there and does not speak Italian.

He was 15 at the time of the killing, was jailed for at least 12 years in 1996 and becomes eligible for parole next year.

The Asylum Tribunal decision was a blow to the government, which has pledged to deport freed foreign prisoners.

It emerged last year that more than 1,000 foreign prisoners had been freed from jails and allowed to stay in the country when they should have been considered for deportation.

Lawrence's death shocked people across the country. The father-of-four was stabbed in the chest as he tried to break up a fight outside St George's Roman Catholic School in Maida Vale.