EXCLUSIVE: Convicted foreign murderer allowed by judge to stay in UK

TECHNICALITY: Westminster Magistrates Court allowed killer Egidijus Zuolys to stay

A CONVICTED murderer has been allowed to stay in the UK on a technicality despite having an outstanding prison term to serve in Lithuania.

Egidijus Zuolys, 49, of no fixed abode kicked his room mate Genovaite Paulauskiene so badly in a drunken rage that she died 13 days later in hospital from multiple injuries.

The attack in November 2003 in their flat in Skuodas led to a 12-year prison sentence for murder.

However, Zuolys was able to get to the UK while he still has on year and four months of the sentence to serve.

Lithuania began extradition proceedings in July 2015, when Zuolys was arrested in Norfolk, and it has taken more than three years for the extradition case to be heard.

Westminster Magistrates Court heard his sentence also included punishments for two other offences of creating a machine to make illegal moonshine alcohol and possessing 145 litres of the drink at his home.

The court heard these are not extraditable offences from the UK.

Because the Lithuanian authorities could not guarantee that the "moonshine" element of his sentence would not be split from that for murder, District judge Kenneth Grant refused to extradite him.

Lithuania can appeal the decision.