Author: Stephen Adams
Publication: The Telegraph
Date: August 20, 2007
URL: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/08/20/nknife320.xml
The killer who knifed headmaster Philip Lawrence
to death is expected to win his appeal to stay in Britain because deporting
him would breach his human rights, according to a Home Office official.
The Asylum and Immigration Tribunal will rule
this week that Italian-born Learco Chindamo cannot be deported as this would
deprive him of his right to family life, the official said.
Chindamo, now 26, stabbed Mr Lawrence in the heart outside the gates of St
George's School in Maida Vale, west London, in 1995 when he was just 15. Mr
Lawrence, 48, the school's headmaster, had been trying to defend a 13-year-old
boy who was being attacked.
The Home Office has argued that allowing Chindamo
to stay when he is freed would not be "conducive to the public good".
However, a Home Office official told a Sunday
newspaper that the tribunal was going to rule against its lawyers.
The official said: "It's ridiculous that
he carried out this horrific crime yet we are unable to deport him. I am sure
we will appeal."
Should Chindamo be allowed to stay it will
be a huge embarrassment for the Government.
Last year the then home secretary, John Reid,
pledged that foreign prisoners convicted of serious offences would be deported
automatically, after his predecessor Charles Clarke was found to have presided
over a system in which more than 1,000 foreigners were freed when they were
meant to be considered for deportation.
However, this has proved difficult to implement.
Besides a prisoner's human rights, which have
been enshrined in British law since 2000, there is also European Union law
to consider. This states that EU citizens can only be deported between member
countries if they pose a "genuine, present and sufficiently serious threat
to the fundamental interests of society".
Yesterday Mr Lawrence's widow, Frances, 60,
said she would not comment until the tribunal had made its formal decision.
Last September she said she was "shocked
and disappointed" that no officials had informed her of moves to have
her husband's killer deported.
Chindamo, born to an Italian father and Filipina
mother, is serving a life sentence for stabbing Mr Lawrence. He could be freed
in 2008 when his 12-year minimum term expires.
He was part of a mainly Filipino gang that
went to St George's School to "punish" a younger boy who argued
with another Filipino boy. He was jailed October 1996.
Chindamo moved to Britain when he was five
with his mother, and brother.
