An Albanian killer who was extradited from Britain to his homeland to face a 15-year jail term has come back to live in the UK after serving just four years.
Ardian Rragami, 45, has made a mockery of the extradition process by returning to Britain just a few years after he was kicked out to face justice for murdering his neighbour in cold blood.
Rragami was back behind bars last night after immigration officers were shamed by the Daily Mail into getting him off the streets. Immigration officers swooped on the killer, who sprayed his victim with four bullets, hours after we submitted a series of questions about the farce to the Home Office.
Now the UK authorities face a lengthy and costly battle to send him back to his home country for a second time.
His case deepens the scandal surrounding Albanian murderers who have fled to the UK to escape justice, exposed by the Mail in the past month.
Posing as a Kosovan refugee called Ardian Gashi, he first sneaked into Britain shortly after committing the appalling murder of a man in northern Albania in 1998.
The fugitive met and married a divorcee in London in 2002, later starting a family with her, and is reported to have been granted asylum after Home Office officials bought his lies about being from Kosovo.
Interpol belatedly tracked him down to Britain in 2009 – when he was working as a builder in Essex – and in 2010 he was extradited to Albania to serve a 15-year jail sentence handed out to him while he was on the run.
But after successfully appealing against the length of his jail sentence, Rragami was controversially freed in 2014 and then moved back to the UK to be reunited with his cosmetic tattoo artist wife Chrysoulla Michaels, 46, and their two daughters in Essex.
The ease with which he has been able to slip back into Britain, having previously lied to gain residency here, is hugely embarrassing for the authorities. And last night, in response to a series of questions from the Mail, the Home Office said officials are aware of his presence in the country and are currently trying to extradite him due to his 'overseas convictions'. Sources said the bill for trying to kick him out of the UK could be substantial.