BBC: Albanian prisoners paid by British government 1500 pounds to return home

In a long report, journalist Lucy Williams was offered 1500 prisoners to leave, and some plan to return looking at this as an opportunity to escape prison, since in Albania they are not obliged to return to prisons.

Below is the BBC's complete coverage:

Albanian authorities have confirmed that most of its citizens forced home from Great Britain this year were convicted of crimes there. The BBC spoke to those men sent home and learned that some prisoners were offered 1500 pounds to leave and some plan to return.

Every week, a small crowd meets on the rolling wire fence located in the back of Tirana's airport in Albania.

The narrow path beyond that, stuck between the rugged black mountains and the high gray walls of the border police unit, is the place where flights to the United Kingdom exile observed closely by the families waiting on the fence descend.

It takes hours for outcasts to appear, slowly running through the gate to receive hugs, shameful smiles, and tears.

Deport flights to Albania have increased since the country signed a joint co-operation agreement with the United Kingdom last December to “receive and prevent illegal migration”.

The Office of the United Kingdom Government says that more than 1,000 people have since returned -- about half of them voluntarily, the rest a combination of failed asylum seekers and foreign offenders.

The BBC spoke to dozens of people on several of these expulsion flights last month and found that most came from U.K. prisons.

Some were offered money in exchange for admission and were released from prison before serving their minimum sentence, according to an existing scheme used for foreign offenders.

Albanian police confirmed that most of those forcedly returned this year were convicted of crimes in the UK.

A happy 30-year-old man said he had served a six-year sentence for drug offences and was released for expulsion after serving only two of them a year before he would be eligible for parole.

He asked us to hide his identity, so we're calling him Mark.

The immigration officer came to see us”, he said.

They ask you if you want to return [to Albania] or stay in the UK. They explained that if you return, you will be relieved of a year's punishment. ”

Mark was also offered 1,500 pounds in financial support to return home, under a special programme called the Easy Return Scheme (FRS).

A U.K. government document clearly states that the scheme is “a financial stimuli” that is offered to foreign prisoners “provided they co-operate with the expulsion and relinquish their right to appeal against it”.

Other prisoners we talked to during the expulsion flights last month were given the same amount.

Mark was deported according to the United Kingdom's early release scheme (ERS), used for foreign prisoners of all nationalities.

The ERS does not seek the consent of the prisoners, but some Albanian exiles we talked to, including Mark, said the expulsion and reduced condemnation were presented as voluntary.

It was my choice to return”, Mark told me. No one forced me. They offered it to me. They told me: “You decide whether you want to go or if you want to stay”.

We asked the Interior Office to confirm how many Albanians had been deported under the ERS since the beginning of last year and how much they had received financial incentives to co-operate, but she said she did not publish these statistics.

A spokesman said in a statement: “The United Kingdom government and Albanian government work together to seize every opportunity to capture people's smugglers' work and accelerate the departure of Albanians without legal right to be in the UK.”

BBC: Albanian prisoners paid by British government 1500
Last year, the government's Community and Borders Act extended the period of early release allowed by the ERS from nine months to one year. One of the goals of this change, according to an Interior Office summary, was to increase the number of evacuations.

The same law also abolished the expiration date for unsupplied sentences, which means that prisoners returning to the UK illegally will have to carry out the rest of the sentence, regardless of how long it has passed by increasing the obstacle to people like Mark.

“I will not go back there,” he said. “I'm not going to jail. Now I'm gonna look for a job, I'm gonna be a good guy. ”

But some of those on the expulsion flights last month said they were planning to return to the UK within weeks or even days, despite what many described as a new hardline approach by police there.

“They are gathering Albanians now,” said a man. “It's very difficult for Albanians to stay in the UK because police stop you on the street. They don't want us now. ”

He said he had returned to Albania after police stopped the car he was in and found that he was without documents.

He's still planning on coming back.

Another man said he had already gone to the UK three times. It's not my problem. I'll be back any time I want. ”

For many of those with whom we spoke, the economic opportunities attracted them to the UK.

However, not for Azemin a young man in his 20 ' s who seemed lost inside his clothes.

BBC: Albanian prisoners paid by British government 1500
Azemi didn't his real name tell us his story on condition of anonymity. He also insisted that we meet somewhere distant, where he would not be heard.

In an unused railway line on a beautiful river immersed in the surrounding landscape outside Tirana, Azem spoke with trembling hands.

He showed me documents describing his departure from Great Britain and his refusal to ask for asylum. He told immigration officials that he had escaped Albania after gang members placed a gun to his head and threatened to kill him for his political activities.

He returned to Albania against his wish last month.

“I'm afraid because the same situation can be repeated”, he said. I've stayed silent, I'm not smiling, I'm stressed and my body is shaking all the time, I don't sleep much”

A psychologist in the United Kingdom report, presented just before Azem's deportation, raised concerns that he may have experienced psychological torture in Albania.

An answer by Home Office said his experiences had already been considered in his request for asylum and that the decision was unchanged.

Azem told me he would not hesitate to return illegally to the United Kingdom if threatened again, despite being on the blacklist to enter the UK and EU countries. Albanians have free movement towards countries like France and Belgium, which offer a light springboard across the Channel.

Albanian police have recently increased their raids at the country's border points to catch the outcasts on the blacklist trying to cross.

Increasing co-operation between the UK and Albania has coincided with a sharp decline in the number of Albanians arriving in small boats; only 29 were discovered in the first months of this year.

Much of this decline is likely seasonal and with the ease of winter weather, both governments are facing the first real test of their approach to handle irregular migration.

BBC: Albanian prisoners paid by British government 1500
I asked Albanian Interior Minister Bledar Cuci what his country was doing to prevent the latest outcasts from returning to Great Britain.

“It is not possible to put all of you a chip to follow where they go”, he said. If there are persons with criminal precedents, especially in traffic, then the police will be on alert. But in general, returning persons are free citizens in Albania. ”

But along with working for illegal migration, he said, both governments should work on legal roads for Albanian citizens to reach the UK.

“I have suggested my colleague, [United Kingdom Secretary] Suella Braverman, to also establish the immediate legalisation of all Albanians working in [the U.S.] at an honest job and who have no criminal precedents”, Chuci added. .

Both the Albanian and British governments recognise the UK's economic appeal.

In the small northern Albanian town of Kruma, 60% of the population has already fled. The first man I meet on the street there speaks hard English with a London accent.

Local politicians say more of the city's voters now live in eastern London than they do at home.

Even those left here go to a café called “Britiania” for morning coffee; its entrance is decorated with a phone box in London full size.

BBC: Albanian prisoners paid by British government 1500
The United Kingdom is investing more than 8 million pounds in training and business projects in Kukes the region where Kruma lies through an organisation intended to change what it calls a cultural <x0-horm” of illegal migration to the UK.

The Albanian government is also investing in infrastructure here, including a new airport. But locals have so far seen few tangible benefits.

We meet the candidate for mayor of Miftar Dauti at a youth campaign rally, his arrival was greeted by an enthusiastic crowd of young supporters and a vocal system playing a song called “Democracy”.

“What is the system where people can't say what they think? “Where do journalists dare not say what's going on? Where does the law apply only to you? Democracy, democracy, democracy! ”

A strange choice for an election campaign, maybe.

Mr. Davidt promises to stop the city's young people from leaving for the UK. But even here among his new supporters in the village municipality, that promise is trying to arrive.

I want to go back to the UK,” a live and baby-face supporter named Walda told me as he watched the candidate leave. “This place is not for me. I've been in UK for two years and I want to go back there. ”

In a local park in the center of Kukes City, grandparents watch young children play soccer under the snow - covered mountains, while groups of teenagers roam along paths.

Locals say some kids here say they want to be immigrants when they leave school.

In a version of Albania's future, British tourists can flock here, fixed by the amazing landscape of this region.

But as many young people here will tell you, the future does not happen in Kukes. They happen in UK./oranews