Human rights rules ‘making mugs of UK’

ECHR laws allow rape and murder suspects to remain

- By Michael Knowles and Jonathan Walker

KEMI Badenoch has said Britain is being “mugged” after two fugitives wanted for murder and child rape used human rights laws to stay in the country.

Marlon Martins Dos Santos and Nicolas Gomes De Brito argued successfully that deporting them would breach the European Convention on Human Rights. De Brito came to the UK in 2019 after allegedly ordering thr murder of a rival gang member.

Dos Santos fled to the UK after being sentenced in Brazil to 14 years in jail for repeatedly raping a five-year-old girl. But a British judge refused an extradition request by Brazil because it would violate Dos Santos’s ECHR Article 3 rights — protection from torture and inhumane treatment.

Mrs Badenoch said yesterday: “We are being taken for mugs. Britain is being mugged by this. It’s absolutely shocking.

“We cannot be a safe haven for rapists and murderers because the prisons in their country are not nice. That’s not our job. I said that if we need to leave [the ECHR], we should leave. And I’ve also said ’m increasingly coming to that view. This is yet another piece of evidence that shows that the ECHR and the way it’s being used by hostile actors, foreign criminals, is no longer fit for purpose.”