Pilot prevents deportation of Afghan by refusing to f ly when he hears him weeping
AN Afghan asylum seeker has avoided being deported on a plane after the pilot refused to take off because he was ‘crying and shouting’.
Samim Bigzad had been booked on to a commercial flight back to his home country after his application to remain in the UK was declined by immigration officers.
The 22-year-old was hysterical as he was escorted on to the flight at Heathrow, claiming he could be beheaded by the Taliban.
As the plane was due to take off, it is alleged that the Turkish Airlines pilot came out of the cockpit and told guards he would not fly with him on board.
Mr Bigzad’s cousin, a British citizen from Margate, Kent, said he has now been taken to an immigration removal centre near Gat-
‘You’re not going to take him’
wick Airport. He told The Independent: ‘Samim said they were in the tunnel by the door when the pilot came out and said: “You’re not going to take him, I’m not flying. Someone’s life is at risk”.
‘The guards took him back to [immigration centre] Brook House – I really don’t know what will happen next.’
Mr Bigzad, who had been due to be flown to Kabul via Istanbul, came to the UK two years ago through Turkey, Greece and ultimately via the migrant camps at Calais in France. He claims to have been threatened with beheading by the Taliban because of his job at a construction company which had links to the country’s government as well as American firms.
After arriving in the UK in November 2015, he moved to Kent to care for his father, a British citizen who it was claimed was tortured by the Taliban in the 1990s.
But he was refused asylum and was denied permission to appeal. He had been staying with a British woman, Kavel Rafferty, in Margate for four months before he was reportedly detained during a routine immigration appointment.
She said: ‘The last message I’d had from him was just said “they’ve come to take me” and then the phone was switched off. But then he rang that night and told me “the pilot said no”. He was relieved and shocked – it was a lot to go through in one day.’
His family are now asking the Afghan interior ministry to contact the British Government to confirm that they cannot guarantee his welfare. More than 3,000 people had signed a petition appealing for the deportation to be delayed while his asylum claim was reviewed. Campaigners even went to Heathrow Airport to ask passengers on the same Istanbul-bound flight to raise objections to crew members that their flight was being used to deport Mr Bigzad.
Campaign organiser Bridget Chapman said activists approached tourists at the check-in gate asking them ‘to do whatever they were comfortable with’. The campaigners now hope to gather more evidence for a new asylum claim.
Under European Aviation rules, pilots are responsible for the safety of the aircraft, its crew and passengers, giving them authority over who is on an aircraft when it takes off.
Turkish Airlines was unavailable for comment last night.
A Home Office spokesman said their policy on which countries people can be deported to ‘is based on a careful and objective assessment of available evidence from a range of sources including media outlets, local, national and international organisations, and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office’, adding: ‘We continually review our country policy to ensure it is up-to-date, so that staff can make fair and considered decisions.’