London: Passengers onboard a flight from Gatwick were terrified when a handcuffed migrant, who was being deported to Venice, repeatedly screamed “Allahu Akbar” and “death is coming”.
Children were reduced to tears and travellers almost feared a terror attack on the two-hour easyJet EZY5263 flight to Venice until it became clear that the handcuffed man was being guarded by British Home Office officials, the Daily Mail reported on Sunday.
According to reports, it emerged that the Home Office was using budget airlines to deport illegal immigrants. In a 11-minute audio recording made by a passenger sitting just yards away, the man screamed “Allahu Akbar” 29 times, “death is coming” 17 times, and “we will die” nine times. The migrant kept up the “crude and threatening” behaviour for nearly the entire length of the budget flight, according to passengers onboard.
In a bid to control the handcuffed migrant, one Home Office official crouched on his knees facing the man, with an arm on his shoulders, for much of the flight. The man is thought to be a failed asylum seeker who had spent a year in a Britain detention centre. He was being deported to Italy under the Dublin Regulation, which dictates that people must claim asylum in the first safe country they reach.
It is the first time a deportee has been reported to have disrupted a budget commercial flight to Europe. The Home Office spends at least $40 million a year on returning illegal immigrants and foreign criminals to their home countries. It charters private jets and pays for individual seats on commercial flights.
