KWEKU Adoboli, a former trader convicted of fraud seven years ago who faces deportation to Ghana has been released and allowed to return home in Scotland after more than a month in detention.

Adoboli, 38, who served four years of a seven-year sentence for a £1.4bn fraud at Swiss bank UBS, was initially denied bail in September after being spared deportation by a legal intervention just hours before his scheduled flight to his birth country, Ghana.

He was released from Harmondsworth Detention Centre on Tuesday nighafter being detained for 36 days and embraced by supporters.

He was expected to take a train with his partner, Alice Gray after collecting him from the detention centre.

“I’m very tired and I’m really looking forward to going home,” he said. “But I can’t feel elated because I know there are so many other men and women locked up in detention who should not be there. Being locked up for 36 days has really started to destroy my mental health.”

The Home Office wants to deport him under laws that require foreign nationals sentenced to more than four years in prison to be sent back to their country of birth.

An application of bail was granted earlier today by a judge at Hatton Cross Tribunal Centre, near Heathrow Airport while his deportation is reviewed.

His case will be the subject of a judicial review, which could take months, but the latest ruling means the former trader will return home pending the outcome.

At a hearing on Tuesday, the judge Stephen Pedro noted that Adoboli had previously been on immigration bail for three years “without fault” and said he could not see, substantial grounds for risk of reoffending or absconding. Adoboli’s friends provided surety for him of £120,000.

Matthew Williams, acting for the Home Office, said the home secretary wanted to keep Adoboli detained because his appeal rights were exhausted.

A fund-raising campaign to continue his legal battle to remain in the UK raised over £17,000. Adoboli who is Ghanaian, but has lived in the UK since the age of 12, does not hold British citizenship.

He was detained at police station last month during a routine meeting at a local police station near his home in Livingston.

The Herald:

Adoboli, who describes himself as British, has since his release from jail given many talks to students, financial traders and others in the banking industry about how to operate ethically and avoid making the mistakes he made.

He had been reporting once a month to the Home Office and had feared that he may be arrested in preparation for deportation after he was denied permission to judicially review the deportation proceedings.

Adoboli appealed, asking the home secretary, Sajid Javid, not to deport him because of his longstanding ties with the UK and the fact that he is working hard to educate people to avoid making the same mistakes he made at UBS.

In June, he lost an appeals court bid to block his deportation, effectively putting an end to his legal challenge.

Speaking after Tuesday’s hearing, Adoboli’s solicitor, Jacqueline McKenzie, said: “We’re very pleased with the outcome. Now Kweku can return to his partner Alice Gray, his friends and his loved ones in Scotland and get on with the important job of fighting the legal battle against deportation.

“Today’s decision is a clear vindication of Kweku’s claim that he’s not at risk of absconding. It’s a shame that an earlier hearing found against him as it meant he has remained in detention for 15 days longer than necessary.”

During his trial at Southwark Crown Court in 2012, he had denied the charges, which related to the period between October 2008 and September 2011.

He argued at his trial nearly six years ago that managers at the bank pushed him to take too many risks. While he admitted causing the loss, he said it wasn’t done dishonestly.

But the jury was told he lost the money in "unprotected, unhedged, incautious and reckless" trades.