A Turkish heroin dealer suspected of being a major organised crime boss has won the right to remain in the UK on human rights grounds, after the government told him he could stay before belatedly changing its mind. The man, now 70, was jailed for 16 years in 2004 when he was branded a “major player” in a plot to distribute drugs across the UK.In 2011, then-Home Secretary Theresa May decided he should not be deported when set free from prison and did not pose a danger to the community.But that decision was reversed two years later, and efforts began to remove him from the country.An immigration tribunal heard the man, who cannot be identified, is an Alevi Kurd and he was granted indefinite leave to remain in the UK as a refugee in 1997.The tribunal heard he has lived in Britain since 1992 and says he would face persecution from the Turkish state if he returned to the country of his birth.Evidence from the UNHCR, the UN refugee agency, was put forward to support the man’s bid to stay in the country, alongside evidence from Amnesty International of “widespread arbitrary detention” of Alevi Kurds in Turkey.
