Yaqub Ahmed, who was jailed for nine years for the rape of a 16-year-old girl in London, will be deported from Britain. His previous deportation attempt was stopped following a protest on the plane
A gang rapist who attacked a teenager in 2007 but then had his deportation stopped after a mutiny by plane passengers will finally be removed from Britain 16 years after being arrested, according to reports.
Yaqub Ahmed, from Somalia, was convicted with three other men and jailed for nine years for the sickening rape of a 16-year-old girl in London.
He was due to be deported in October 2018 but was taken off a plane from Heathrow to Turkey after protesters – who were unaware of his crime – caused an uproar.
A video of the incident emerged in which Ahmed was heard screaming as holidaymakers shouted: “Take him off the plane!”
The four-strong Home Office team accompanying Ahmed were forced to abandon the deportation and take him off the aircraft.
Ahmed was due to be deported in 2018 but passengers on the plane caused an uproar
Ahmed was then given bail in March 2019, fitted with an electronic tag and allowed back on the streets.
The rapist was then taken back into custody and was held at a detention centre.
Ahmed’s victim, who suffered post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) as a result of the rape, previously told the Mail on Sunday that seeing the video in which protesters stopped the criminal from being deported made her “angry and upset”.
Hitting out at the “bleeding heart” passengers who intervened, she said: “He was in handcuffs, he was being taken out of the country… who are you people to interfere with justice?
“Fair enough you didn’t know the situation, but now I hope you feel proud of yourselves because you stopped something that I have waited for for so long: something that made me feel that little bit safer.”
Now, 16 years after his initial arrest for rape, Ahmed will be finally booted out of the UK and sent to Somalia, with Tory MP Nigel Mills describing his deportation as “very good news”.
Mr Mills told The Sun: “It was a sickening crime and he has no right to walk free in Britain.
“We need to send a strong message out that offenders like this have no place in this country.
“Unfortunately, he will not be the only case of its kind.”
The victim, who cannot be identified for legal reasons, previously detailed how she was lured to a flat in Crouch End, North London, by a youth who claimed her friend was waiting for her after she lost her on a night out.
She said she was held down while the men took turns to rape her during the horrific attack.
Neighbours heard her screams and called police, but all four denied rape, forcing the woman to relive the ordeal at a trial.
Ahmed, then 19, Adnan Mohamud, 19, and Adnan Barud, 21, were all jailed for nine years.
Ondogo Ahmed, 19, was given eight years for conspiracy to rape. He died fighting for ISIS in 2013.
When news of Ahmed’s failed deportation emerged in 2019, the victim’s mother said she hoped that kicking the rapist out of the UK would allow her daughter to feel safer and give her “some form of justice”.
She said: “It’s been never-ending. That’s my child’s life – her childhood – that has been taken away.
“She also called for ‘each and everyone’ of the passengers who intervened to apologise.
“Why did they feel the need to intervene in something which clearly was nothing to do with them? They actually made it possible for my daughter’s rapist to be allowed back into the country by their actions.”
The Home Office said at the time: “We are determined to protect the public by removing foreign nationals who commit criminal offences.”
The Mirror
