After five years, 24 court appearances, 20 judges and £85,000 in legal aid, Britain finally sends plane-mutiny rapist back to Somalia… with plush hotel, armed guards and therapy you paid for

He’s the vile gang rapist whose deportation was infamously thwarted on the final minute by a mutiny of virtue-signalling airline passengers on the identical flight.

Now The Mail on Sunday can reveal the way it has taken one other 5 years to lastly ship Yaqub Ahmed again to Somalia – with Ministers compelled to supply a unprecedented package deal of concessions to interrupt his relentless cycle of doubtful human rights appeals.

To safe his expulsion, the prison was given a 14-week keep in certainly one of Somalia’s most luxurious accommodations, all meals included, plus armed guards and a personalised remedy package deal after complaining of psychological well being points – all at taxpayers’ expense. In distinction, the lady he attacked when she was simply 16 has struggled to search out such assist for the psychological scars he inflicted.

Ahmed has dragged his deportation struggle via not less than 24 separate tribunal or courtroom hearings, in entrance of 20 or extra judges, as he made a collection of false claims. However at present this newspaper can reveal that the 34-year-old was lastly expelled in August, after costing taxpayers as much as £1 million in authorized, jail and deportation prices, together with the beneficiant ‘care package deal’ to greet his arrival in Somalia.

Final night time, Ahmed’s sufferer stated it was ‘completely surprising’ that officers have been compelled to go to such lengths to defeat his repeated human rights appeals.

‘Our authorized system is a joke,’ she stated. ‘We used to say we have been fairly honest; nicely, we’re not. Nothing about this has been honest.’

Particulars of Ahmed’s extraordinary case exposes the convenience with which international criminals run rings round officers and comes simply days after the Supreme Court docket torpedoed Rishi Sunak’s flagship scheme to deport Channel migrants to Rwanda.

Former Residence Secretary Suella Braverman informed The Mail on Sunday the case was an instance of how criminals exploit human rights legal guidelines to make ‘spurious, repetitive and in the end obstructive’ authorized claims to thwart deportation.

Our unique investigation additionally reveals that:

• Ahmed has price taxpayers virtually £85,000 in authorized support;
• A chartered flight used to lastly deport him price round £200,000 – and it’s unclear whether or not every other deportees have been on board;
• In an audacious plot, Ahmed fabricated a declare that he can be focused by Islamic State terrorists if he returned to Somalia, arranging for a pretend loss of life menace video to be posted on-line;
• Ahmed exploited trendy slavery legal guidelines by falsely claiming to have been below the management of a UK medicine gang;
• A senior BBC editor was paid to present proof for Ahmed – however her testimony was closely criticised by judges and her objectivity questioned;
• A draconian authorized order gagged this newspaper from revealing Ahmed’s duplicity till now, as he was granted anonymity for 15 weeks after he was deported.

Ahmed was granted refugee standing in 2003 after arriving in Britain from Somalia aged 14.

However he was jailed in 2008 after he and three different males lured their teenage sufferer to a flat in London earlier than brutally attacking her. A decide lambasted him for having ‘no respect for different human beings’.

In April 2015, Theresa Might, then Residence Secretary, stripped him of his refugee standing and slapped a deportation order on him. This was, nonetheless, merely the opening salvo of a tortuous authorized battle.

The string of hearings went as excessive because the Court docket of Enchantment and Authorities legal professionals have fought off three claims by the rapist and his legal professionals for judicial assessment.

Six successive Residence Secretaries have tried to take away him from the UK. In October 2018, his deportation dramatically collapsed when woke holidaymakers, unaware of his appalling crime, mutinied and demanded he be hauled off the Turkish Airways jet that was about to fly him out of the UK because it sat on the tarmac at Heathrow.

An astonishing three-minute video confirmed passengers erupting into applause because the four-strong Residence Workplace group frogmarched him off the airplane, with one holidaymaker shouting: ‘You are free, man!’

Ahmed was hours from being escorted on to a different deportation flight on not less than two extra events, just for his removing to be halted by last-ditch authorized challenges.

Court docket papers obtained by the MoS reveal how – in a bid to steer the courts that deportation wouldn’t breach his human rights – Residence Workplace officers took the extraordinary step of agreeing to make use of public funds to help Ahmed for three-and-a-half months after his arrival in Somalia’s capital, Mogadishu.

‘This included the supply of psychological well being treatment and psychological providers via a clinic in Mogadishu,’ the papers acknowledged. The package deal additionally included the availability of a month’s value of antidepressants, full-board lodging within the Peace Resort for 14 weeks, transportation from the airport to the resort in an armour-plated automobile and transportation between the resort and a clinic for medical appointments.

In the end, nonetheless, even that was not sufficient to move off yet one more human rights enchantment. On November 2, 2020, simply two days earlier than his deliberate deportation, Ahmed claimed he was susceptible to being killed if returned to Somalia.

The courtroom papers present how this last enchantment was aided by BBC Africa Editor Mary Harper, who appeared as an knowledgeable witness.

She warned in a written report and through a listening to earlier than three judges that if Ahmed was despatched again to Somalia his life can be in peril. She stated he would wrestle to get a job and even claimed he may very well be accused of being a British spy.

Final night time, Ms Harper, 58, didn’t reply when requested how a lot she was paid, however consultants estimated a typical payment may very well be round £3,000.

It later emerged that Ahmed’s last-ditch enchantment was based mostly on pretend proof. Days earlier than he was as a consequence of be deported, a video mysteriously appeared on-line which purportedly confirmed Islamic State gunmen threatening to kill Ahmed. However in a bombshell judgment final 12 months, three judges dominated the video was truly a ‘fabrication’ that had been recorded on Ahmed’s orders.

His sufferer, Hannah – not her actual identify – final night time lambasted the justice system. ‘He negated his human rights after he did what he did,’ she stated. ‘It wasn’t a human factor to do. Why are his human rights being prioritised above mine and other people like me?’

For years, the MoS has been prevented from totally reporting on Ahmed’s case by a collection of draconian courtroom orders. The latest order, granted final December, offered Ahmed with anonymity till ‘the primary day of the fifteenth week’ after his removing from the UK.

Daybreak Alford, government director of the Society of Editors, stated the order was ‘vastly regarding’.

This newspaper additionally efficiently fought an ‘unprecedented’ utility for 3 of Ahmed’s barristers to be granted anonymity.

The Residence Workplace has eliminated 14,700 international criminals between January 2019 and March 2023. A spokesperson stated: ‘Returning a international nationwide offender to their nation of origin can contain huge challenges. Often help packages are required to safe settlement from the courtroom to proceed with deportation.’