Plane mutiny rapist is back on our streets
After victim tells of her anger that passengers kept him in UK...
A RAPIST whose deportation was halted when airline passengers staged a mutiny is back on the streets after being released on bail, The Mail on Sunday can reveal.
Yaqub Ahmed, who should have been deported to his native Somalia last October, was released on bail four weeks ago and is now living in North-West England as his legal team fights his deportation.
The 29-year-old was convicted and jailed along with three other men for the gang rape of a 16-yearold girl in 2007.
News of his release comes after his victim spoke bravely of her fear and anger that her attacker remains in the UK.
Last night, Hannah – not her real name – reacted with horror to news Ahmed is no longer behind bars.
‘It’s just disgusting and it adds pressure on to me,’ she said.
‘He should be in a detention centre where he is kept away from the public. He has done something heinous and he was meant to be deported for it and now he is still roaming about. It’s absolutely ridiculous. Knowing he is roaming around doesn’t make me feel any safer. It just gets worse.’
The deportation of Ahmed, who was given a nine-year jail term, was abandoned shortly before the aircraft was due to leave London for Turkey after passengers – who were unaware of his crime – took pity on him and intervened.
In a video of the incident, Ahmed is seen screaming as passengers shout: ‘Take him off the plane.’
Last week, it was revealed that Ahmed had been listed to appear before an immigration tribunal in Nottingham on March 14, but the Home Office and the tribunal refused to provide details of what happened.
This newspaper has now established it was a bail hearing, during which Ahmed’s lawyers successfully argued that he should be released into the community. His bail conditions require him to live at a specified address and report to an immigration centre once a week. He is also believed to have been fitted with an electronic tag.
But mother-of-one Hannah, 27, fears Ahmed could disappear.
Another of her attackers, Ondogo Ahmed, managed to flee Britain to join Islamic State following his release in 2012, despite being on licence. He is believed to have been killed in the fighting in 2013.
Hannah said: ‘What if he [Yaqub Ahmed] wants to abscond? It’s not like they kept tabs on them before. One of them was able to abscond to IS. The Home Office should understand how difficult this must be for me.’
The Home Office declined to comment on Ahmed’s case but said last night that it had deported 47,000 foreign criminals since 2010, and monitors those who are released into the community pending deportation.
A spokesman added: ‘We are determined to protect the public by removing foreign national offenders who commit criminal offences.’