The man who passengers stopped from being deported from the UK is a foreign criminal convicted of serious offences, MailOnline can reveal.
Dramatic video footage captured the moment passengers on a flight from London to Turkey stopped the unnamed man from being deported by demanding he be taken off the plane.
The man had been brought onto the Turkish Airlines flight at Heathrow Airport shortly before it was due to depart for Istanbul on Tuesday afternoon, accompanied by four officials.
The footage shows him screaming at the top of his lungs, shouting that he is being separated from his family and being taken to Somalia.
Passengers on the flight intervened to help get the man removed from the plane after a protracted argument with Home Office staff on-board.
But a source told MailOnline that the man was being deported from the UK because he is a ‘foreign national offender’ who has been convicted of serious offences.
In the footage, a number of riled up passengers shout to ‘take him off the plane’ and a number others turn from their seats to start filming the confrontation.
One passenger points out the man being deported says he is going to Mogadishu in Somalia and the officer responds: ‘And you believe him?’
In another incident a passenger claims that people die in Mogadishu, the official responds: ‘They die in London, sir.’
The Home Office worker then tells passengers he has been to Mogadishu several times and it was ‘all right’.
A male passenger marches to the back row of the plane, where two Home Office staff are seated either side of the man, and tells the officials the man claims he is being separated from his family.
According to a witness, passengers continue to argue with the Home Office staff members, saying they do not know if the man is a criminal.
Eventually, the man is removed off the plane to the cheers of the passengers, and one can be heard shouting that he is ‘a free man’.
At first Home Office staff try to block the view of passengers demanding an explanation to the delay and the noise and try to reassure passengers that ‘it will quiet down’ once they are airborne.
Stand-off: Several passengers became distressed as the man due to be deported kept screaming at the top of his lungs
One official said: ‘It’s an attempt to get himself thrown off the aircraft so he can stay in the UK.’
When some passengers tell the Home Office officials that the man’s continuous screaming is scaring them, one of the staff members, dressed in a high-vis vest responds: ‘Hang on, how many of you have babies?
‘How many of them scream? You wont get scared when they scream.’
Despite the attempt to quell their concerns, Home Office officials were forced to give in and remove the man after persistent pleas from passengers.
A Home Office spokesperson said: ‘We only return those with no legal right to remain in the UK, including foreign national offenders.
‘All foreign nationals who are given a custodial sentence will be considered for removal.
‘Foreign nationals who abuse our hospitality by committing crimes in the UK should be in no doubt of our determination to deport them and we have removed more than 43,000 foreign offenders since 2010.’
MailOnline has contacted Turkish Airlines for comment.
By JAMIE WISEMAN and SARA MALM FOR MAILONLINE
