A PEOPLE-smuggler who twice sneaked into Britain illegally has won the right to stay here.
Albanian Ali Lika was cleared to remain by immigration judges who ruled he did not pose a sufficiently serious threat.
He was said to be a reformed character since he was convicted in France in 2017 of being part of a people-smuggling operation.
Lika first sneaked illegally into the UK in 2015.
The following year he was arrested on an Interpol warrant in the UK and hauled back across the Channel.
He was jailed in France for five years for helping an organised people-smuggling gang.
Months after being released and deported to Albania in 2019, Lika again sneaked into the UK illegally.
He married a Greek woman months after meeting her online — and claimed he was entitled to live in the UK as a family member of an EU national.
In February, Lika was cleared to stay by a tribunal judge.
The Home Office appealed but a judge in a higher level tribunal has now backed the decision.
Under Brussels rules, family of EU nationals can be deported only if they present a “genuine, present and sufficiently serious threat”.
The judges said depriving Lika of a residence card was disproportionate and there was no evidence he had returned to his criminal ways.
They said Lika, thought to be in his 30s, had “made efforts to integrate in the UK”.
Appeal judge Melissa Canavan said the earlier decision to let him stay was “within a range of reasonable responses to the evidence”.
