Danish court rules for drug lord deportation

A notorious Palestinian gang member and drug dealer will be deported from Denmark, despite his bid to remain in the country with his wife and eight children.

The Supreme Court overturned a decision by the Western High Court that Mahmoud Khalil Salem, also known as ‘Fez Fez’, could not be deported without consideration for his family who have lived in Denmark with him for nearly 20 years.

After moving to Denmark in 1993, Fez Fez started to receive welfare cheques as a stateless Palestinian in 2004. At the time of his arrest in 2009, police found he was trying to buy an apartment in Damascus and had sent around DKK 71,000 (EUR 9,536) to his family abroad.

The 41 year-old from Odense is currently serving a six-year jail term for a string of offences. The court found that the criminal has failed to integrate into Danish society, sending large amounts of money back to his family in Lebanon and Syria and only achieving a basic grasp of Danish, speaking solely Arabic at home. It was also pointed out that Fez Fez has enjoyed “a central and leading role in carrying out sustained, organised and brutish drug crimes”.

Despite the decision, it is possible that Fez Fez may remain in Denmark’s asylum centre in Sandholm, as Lebanon and Syria are unlikely to accept him as a stateless Palestinian. His lawyer, Michael Juul Eirksen, said they will now take the case to the European Court of Human Rights.