Hundreds of Nigerian criminals will be sent home to serve out prison sentences under a deal set to be struck by ministers within weeks.
Talks are continuing into reaching a compulsory prisoner transfer agreement, which could see more than half of the 500 criminals from Nigeria currently in UK jails repatriated.
Prisons minister Jeremy Wright told MailOnline how 'more foreign prisoners must serve their sentences in their own countries'.
Britain has even made clear it would pay to build new prisons in countries like Nigeria to speed up the process of sending foreign criminals home. Up to £1million has been promised to upgrade Nigerian jails, including a new wing at Kirikiri Prison in Lagos.
But to date little progress has been made. When the coalition was formed there were 11,135 foreign prisoners in UK jails, and this figure has fallen by just three per cent since to 10,786.
Each felon costs an average of around £40,000 a year to keep inside.
Last week it was announced that notorious Liberian warlord Charles Taylor is to serve his 50-year sentence for war crimes in the UK.
A prisoner-transfer agreement was struck with Albania earlier this year to 'free up space in prisons here and reduce the cost to the British taxpayer’.
It was the first major bilateral prisoner transfer agreement with a country outside the European Union.
There were around 250 Albanians in UK jails in June this year.
But securing an agreement with Nigeria would be seen as a much more significant breakthrough.
Latest figures show there were 534 Nigerian nationals in British jails, 485 men and 49 women.
Nigerians account for one in 20 of all foreign prisoners, putting the country fifth in the league table of nations whose citizens have been jailed in the UK.
No comments:
Post a Comment