Ex-UBS trader Kweku Adoboli being deported
Kweku Adoboli has not lived in Ghana since he was four
Kweku Adoboli, the former UBS trader convicted of fraud, will be deported to Ghana on Wednesday, campaigners have said.
His MP, Hannah Bardell, said he would be flown out of Heathrow in the early evening after being detained on Monday night.
She said Adoboli, aged 38 and who has lived for 26 years in the UK, was in a distressed state.
The Home Office has declined to comment on the reports.
Ms Bardell told the BBC she had spoken to Adoboli on the phone Wednesday afternoon and that he was due to fly to Casablanca at 17:10, and then onto Ghana.
The MP, who has campaigned to stop the deportation, said he was “struggling not to break down”.
She said she had spoken to Immigration Minister Caroline Nokes on Tuesday night to find out when Adoboli was likely to be deported so that he could prepare himself. But Ms Bardell said the minister did not provide details.
The Keep Kweku Campaign, which has also been campaigning to stop the deportation, called the deportation “inhumane and shameful”.
Adoboli served four years of a seven-year sentence for a £1.4bn fraud and was released in 2015.
He was born in Ghana but left when he was four and has lived in the UK since he was 12.
Immigration minister Caroline Nokes had said that all foreign nationals sentenced to more than four years’ imprisonment are subject to automatic deportation, unless there are compelling reasons for them to remain.
Since he was detained on 3 September, more than 74,000 people have signed a petition against Adoboli’s deportation, with more than 130 members of the UK and Scottish parliaments signing a letter to Home Secretary Sajid Javid asking him to intervene.
Adoboli was found guilty of booking fictitious trades to cover up big losses during the financial crisis between 2008 and 2011.
He pleaded not guilty, saying his senior managers knew what he was doing and encouraged him to take risks.
