Civic-minded passengers who had boarded an Istanbul-bound Turkish Airlines flight at Heathrow Airport were able to block the deportation of a Somali man. In doing so, they prevented the extradition of a foreign criminal who was convicted in the gang rape of a young girl.
The British tabloid Daily Mail revealed on Sunday that Yaqub Ahmed, a 29-year-old Somali national, preyed on a 16-year-old girl together with three cohorts after she became separated from her friends during a night out in London in August 2007.
READ MORE: Finnish Woman Detained After Trying to Stop Flight With Deported Migrant
The men enticed her into a flat, claiming that her companions were inside, and then gang-raped her. All four were found guilty and were jailed for nine years. Ahmed left prison after serving little more than four years, and the Home Office ordered his deportation due to the seriousness of his offence.
However, other passengers stopped him from being deported by demanding that he be removed from the flight. In dramatic mobile phone footage, people can be heard chanting, "Take him off the plane!" while the deportee screams at the top of his lungs.
This act of protest prompted security guards to escort the man off the plane, causing the people on board to cheer and applaud.
🆘‼🤬✈ UK: #Muslim passengers on a #Heathrow flight to Turkey prevent the deportation of a Somali migrant (serious crimes, and this scum have already cost the taxpayer tens of thousands of pounds) by refusing the takeoff requirements. pic.twitter.com/JeUmd1BT0g
— Onlinemagazin (@OnlineMagazin) 11 октября 2018 г.
The purported gang-rapist is now said to be in an immigration detention center awaiting another flight out of the UK.
In late July, a Swedish activist made headlines with a similar plane mutiny. Student Elin Ersson refused to take her seat on a Turkey-bound fight at Gothenburg airport, halting the deportation of an Afghan asylum seeker from the country. She was branded a "hero" by some local media; it emerged later, however, that the Afghan migrant had in fact been sentenced for assault and was being deported after his asylum bid had been rejected.
