OFFICIALS are working with foreign embassies to deport a gang leader living in Newport, the Welsh secretary has said.

David Jones has told Newport Tory councillor David Fouweather that the Home Office want Joland Giwa, 24, gone from the UK “as quickly as possible”.

The minister said Mr Giwa’s current home in Newport’s York Place was the only secure accommodation that could be found for him.

The Argus exclusively revealed last month that Mr Giwa, understood to have been the leader of the Don’t Say Nothing gang in Croydon, was relocated to Newport from immigration detention after the Home Office failed to deport him.

A High Court judge had ruled last year it would be illegal to detain him beyond January amid difficulties in providing his nationality.

In a letter to Cllr Fouweather, Mr Jones said: “Please be assured that the Home Office are liaising with the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in order to engage with the foreign embassies to ensure that documentation is agreed for the removal of Mr Giwa as quickly as possible.”

He said that Mr Giwa was convicted of committing a serious offence and that “it is the Home Office’s view that he should be removed from the UK as quickly as possible”.

Mr Jones said Mr Giwa’s bail conditions, set by the Special Immigration Appeals Commission, stipulated that he must not enter London.

He wrote: “I understand that the address in Newport was the only suitable and secure accommodation that could source.”

The Home Office are extremely disappointed by the court’s decision but continue to manage him in the community, with Mr Giwa subject to “rigorous contact management conditions” including electronic monitoring and “police doorstep presentations”.

Mr Jones’ letter adds that the Home Office is working closely with police and social services to monitor him – “should he come to any adverse attention, re-detention will be immediately considered”.

Mr Giwa, dubbed by a member of the Metropolitan Police a “serious threat to the public and other young people”, had been in immigration detention for more than four years after completing a 27-month prison term for two convicted robberies.

Mr Giwa, in an exclusive interview with the Argus in January, denied being a violent gang leader.