Igli Hazizaj, a 28-year-old Albanian, has lost an immigration appeal against his deportation after a judge found he invented a claim to have been trafficked and locked in a cannabis farm.[1] First-tier Tribunal Judge C R Cole dismissed the appeal on all grounds in a decision dated 2 November 2026 after a hearing at Manchester on 28 October 2026 that Hazizaj did not attend and at which he was unrepresented.[2][3]
The tribunal held that a three-year sentence for conspiracy to produce cannabis was a particularly serious crime and that Hazizaj had not rebutted the presumption that he is a danger to the UK community, so he was excluded from refugee protection.[2] Hazizaj had said his father borrowed money from a criminal gang that then trafficked him to Britain and forced him to work in cannabis houses he could not leave.[2][3] The judge found the account inconsistent with Albanian border records showing he flew from Luton to Albania in October 2022 and left for Hamburg in February 2023, so he did not accept that Hazizaj was trafficked into Britain in late 2023.[2]
His former partner gave the tribunal social media photographs of the couple in April, July and August 2024, including a stag party in Wales, her Swansea graduation and their engagement in Manchester, which the judge said did not support a claim to have been imprisoned in a cannabis farm.[2][3]
Hazizaj was convicted at Carlisle Crown Court on 16 January 2025 of conspiracy to produce cannabis and sentenced on 27 February 2025.[2] Police found 83 plants at Newtown Road and 145 at Warwick Road, while a third property in Howe Street held an abandoned factory; two co-defendants were jailed for 16 months and a year.[4] A deportation order was made against Hazizaj on 5 December 2025 and the Home Office refused his protection and human rights claims four days later.[2] Hazizaj also faces extradition to Albania, where he has been sentenced to nine months for using a forged Greek passport at Tirana airport, and he is on bail in Britain for further undisclosed charges.[1]
The forged Greek passport was used when he tried to board a plane from Tirana to Barcelona.[3] He was due to appear at Central London Magistrates’ Court on 14 November.[3]
