Rapist deported five years after plane mutiny to stop him being kicked out of UK

20 November 2023 , 16:48

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Ahmed was due to be deported in 2018 but passengers on the plane caused an uproar

A Somali gang rapist whose deportation was thwarted by airline passengers five years ago has been deported from the UK, it has been revealed.

Yaqub Ahmed, 34, racked up a large bill in legal, prison and deportation costs before being sent back to Somalia on a chartered flight in August. His immigration tribunal in Hatton Cross, near Heathrow, saw a BBC journalist being hired as an expert witness by lawyers representing Ahmed in a last appeal to block his deportation to Somalia. The Mail on Sunday revealed today that Ahmed is now back in Somalia.

Ahmed had initially been put on a commercial flight in 2018 but footage showed passengers applauding as Home Office workers took him off the flight, shouting "You’re free, man!" Ahmed was granted refugee status in 2003 after arriving in Britain from Somalia aged 14. But he was jailed in 2008 after he and three other men lured their teenager to a flat in London before brutally attacking her. A judge lambasted him for having "no respect for other human beings."

Gang rapist Yaqub Ahmed (MET POLICE)

In April 2015, former Home Secretary Theresa May stripped him of his refugee status and ordered a deportation order which marked the start of a long legal battle. The string of hearings went as high as the Court of Appeal and six successive Home Secretaries have attempted to remove him from the UK. In October 2018, his deportation dramatically collapsed when holidaymakers, unaware of his crime, demanded he be taken off the Turkish Airlines flight that was about to fly and deport him.

BBC Africa Editor Mary Harper warned that being back in Somalia could subject Ahmed to abuse from the terror group Al Shabaab because it would want to "punish" him for raping a 16-year-old girl in London. She claimed he could be harassed by Somali security forces and wrongly labelled a British spy. She said he would also likely struggle to find a job in Mogadishu.

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However one of the judges said, the MailOnline reported: "It was concerning to hear that she [Ms Harper] had not read thoroughly key material concerning the appellant's case. The failure to do so and the failure to make reference to previous contrary findings by the tribunal when providing her opinion about risk caused us to have concerns about the objectivity of her evidence on this issue."

Former Home Secretary who felt very strongly about the case, wrote in the Mail on Sunday today: "I knew from day one of becoming Home Secretary that the endless appeals and legal merry-go-round in our immigration courts and tribunals was totally unacceptable. But the Ahmed case was a tipping point for me."

Rachel Hagan