A Somalian whose deportation from Britain was dramatically halted after airline passengers staged a mutiny demanding his release can be exposed today as a convicted gang rapist who was being kicked out of the country because of his sickening crime.

Officials escorting Yaqub Ahmed on a flight from Heathrow to Turkey were forced to abandon his deportation when around a dozen holidaymakers who felt sorry for him angrily intervened shortly before take-off.

At one stage during the astonishing episode, filmed on mobile phones, one traveller complained: ‘They’re separating him from his family’, while others chanted ‘take him off the plane’.

When harassed security guards caved in and walked 29-year-old Ahmed off the Turkish Airlines flight, he was seen thanking those on board for their support as they cheered and applauded.