A woman who was the victim of a brutal gang rape attack in 2007 has spoken out about her ordeal and her attacker not being deported thanks to passengers aboard his flight.
The victim, known only as “Hannah”, spoke to the Mail on Sunday to recount the horrific attack, which occurred at a flat in Crouch End, London, when she was just 16 years old.
Yaqub Ahmed was one of four men who carried out the attack 12 years ago. The men reportedly lured the victim from a bar, telling her that her friend was at their flat. When she arrived her friend wasn’t there and the gang repeatedly assaulted her. She spoke of being held down by the gang as she was repeatedly raped and being punched in the face by one member as she resisted the attack.
She managed to escape and run out of the flat just as police arrived, thanks to neighbours having heard her cries for help. The four men were arrested at the scene. The men denied the attack but were convicted due to “extensive” DNA evidence. Three of the men received short 9-year prison sentences and a fourth received a shorter 8 years — even shorter than they first appear, considering criminals in the United Kingdom are typically released from prison “on licence” halfway through their sentences.
One of her attackers was Yaqub Ahmed, who served just four years.
He was due to be deported to Somalia but, after screaming and resisting on his deportation flight, many passengers stepped in to obstruct the deportation from going ahead.
One passenger approached Ahmed and then told fellow travellers, “‘He says they’re separating him from his family, his family’s here.” The passengers then chanted “take him off the plane”, with one shouting “you’re free man” as security officers finally gave up and led Ahmed from the plane.
The victim said of the passengers’ actions, “How could you defend a rapist? How could you intervene? He was in handcuffs, he was being taken out of the country… who are you people to interfere with justice?”
“‘You think that was a bad scream?” she asked. “Try hearing the screams that I made.”
“The more they stuck up for him, the more he screamed. It’s like a kid having a tantrum, the more attention you give that kid, the worse their screams get,” she added.
She said of the officials on the flight, “They should have executed their job, which is to calm things down, to tell the passengers if they don’t stop causing trouble they will be removed from the flight just like any other unruly passenger.”
The passengers may have been in breach of a variety of aviation and immigration laws related to conduct and obstruction, with some arguing they were also perverting the course of justice — but as yet there is no information suggesting police have taken any action against them, or that the Home Office has taken steps to deprive British national involved of their passports or put any foreign nationals on the ban list.
Ahmed was not immediately put on another flight and remains in a detention facility, costing taxpayers up to £100 a day, and is reportedly still scheduled for deportation.
Another member of the rape gang, Ondogo Ahmed, left Britain to fight for Islamic State while still on licence from prison. He was believed to have been killed in Syria in 2013, though a warrant remains open for his arrest.
The outcry from passengers was not the first time that “social justice warrior” members of the public have interfered with a deportation.
In July 2018, Swedish immigration activist Elin Errson, a member of the “Sitdown Strike” collective, was single-handedly responsible for preventing a man convicted of assault from being deported to Afghanistan.
Errson had reportedly booked a seat on the flight from Gothenburg to Turkey specifically to disrupt the deportation, and was later fined 3,000 Krona (£250) for the protest.