Rapist Whose Deportation Was Blocked by Airplane Passengers to Be Sent Back to Somalia

A convicted Somali gang rapist who was supposed to be deported in October is to finally be removed from the UK.

Yaqub Ahmed, 30, was set to be deported to Somalia in October 2018, but after screaming and resisting on his commercial flight, other passengers protested and demanded he be taken off the plane.

Passengers on the flight were reported to have shouted: “He says they’re separating him from his family, his family’s here.” The passengers then chanted “take him off the plane”, with one yelling “you’re free man” as security officers finally gave up and led him from the flight.

This time, however, Ahmed is being held at a detention centre near a London airport and it is believed that the government is chartering a flight to take Ahmed back to Somalia to avoid a repeat of passenger involvement preventing the deportation, as revealed by The Mail on Sunday.

The source told the newspaper that the deportation is set to take place “in the not too distant future”.

Ahmed was one of four men who brutally gang-raped a 16-year-old girl who they lured back from a bar in 2007, telling her that her friend was at their flat. When inside, the group forced themselves on her, with one member even punching her in the face as she fought back. Thanks to neighbours overhearing her cries for help, police were called and the four men were arrested at the scene. Ahmed received just nine years in prison for his part in the attack.

After his failed repatriation, Ahmed faced a deportation hearing and was released in March on an electronic tag, despite the severity of the crime. It was reported at the time of his failed deportation that he had allegedly been granted refugee status after coming to the UK as a child and had links to an Islamic State fighter.

Upon learning about Ahmed’s deportation being held up, his victim said in April: “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.”

Ahmed was not the first convicted criminal migrant to have his deportation held up by passengers. In a high-profile incident in Sweden, 21-year-old student Elin Ersson blocked an Afghan’s deportation flight after boarding the airplane bound for Turkey. It was later revealed that the migrant had been jailed for assault, with Ms Ersson fined £250 in February by a Swedish court for blocking the violent criminal migrant’s deportation.