Securitas robber Jetmir Bucpapa wants to serve the rest of his prison term in his native Albanian - but authorities are refusing to transfer him over fears he'll be released early
An Albanian robber jailed for Britain's biggest ever cash heist is fighting for the right to do his time in his home country.
But the government is trying to block the move amid fears he could get out early and get his hands on the missing millions.
Jetmir Bucpapa, 35, was one of four men jailed in 2008 for the notorious £53million gang raid on the Securitas depot in Tonbridge, Kent.
Staff were trussed up and locked in cages, a child kidnapped and threats made before the gang got away with the loot.
After a raid on the Iraqi Central Bank during bombing, it is the world's second biggest ever cash robbery.
Bucpapa was jailed for 30 years, but as much as £30m of the stolen cash has still not been found.
He is now fighting at the High Court to be transferred to an Albanian prison to be closer to his family.
Staff at the depot were tied up and locked in cages during the terrifying raid in 2006
Refusing to authorise his transfer, former Justice Secretary, Liz Truss, said the fact he could get out almost four years early in Albania and that the money has not been recovered justify keeping him in a UK prison.
Bucpapa was part of a gang which had carried out a huge robbery, and not all of them had been caught, said government barrister Christopher Knight.
'The Secretary of State is entitled to have regard to the fact of the unrecovered money and the risk he may benefit from this money to some degree,' he said.
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Bucpapa applied for the move last year, but it was refused in a personally made decision by Liz Truss, leading to the challenge at the High Court.
His lawyers say the refusal is wrong because it is inconsistent with every other case involving an Albanian prisoner wanting to go home.
Bucpapa wants to be transferred back to Albania (pictured) but the UK is refusing to let him go
Of 17 previous cases, some of them brutal murderers, not one of them had been refused transfer to an Albanian prison, said Philip Havers QC.
Bucpapa had been ordered to hand over a nominal £1 under a confiscation order and there was no chance of him getting his hands on the missing cash, he added.
'He feels that, in the present case, he has been treated unfairly,' Mr Havers told Judge Martin McKenna.
The judge has now reserved his decision and will give his ruling at a later date.
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