Asylum-seekers who were mere moments away from being flown to Rwanda described feeling terrified as they were manhandled, restrained and intimidated by officials who forced them to board the first deportation aircraft hours before a European court decision grounded the plane.
One of the men, a 25-year-old Kurd from Iran, told The Independent newspaper that he was forced to the floor of the plane by a knee to his head before being strapped into a restraining harness “like a dog”.
The man, Zoran, had escaped political persecution in his native country for Britain less than two months earlier. Describing the physical and mental ordeal he went through in the last hours before the European Court of Human Rights’ injunction stopped the flight on Tuesday, he said it was “nothing I have ever gone through before” and that “it felt like I was going to die”.
Zoran was one of seven men who were scheduled to be on the first UK-Rwanda flight from Boscombe Down, near Salisbury, on a 200-seat 767 Boeing aircraft at a cost to the British taxpayer of up to £500,000 ($598,000).
Ministers had originally planned for as many as 130 people to be on board the plane, but by Tuesday it had shrunk to seven with a series of appeals failing in UK courts with just hours remaining.
Mohammed, another asylum-seeker from Iran, was escorted on to the Tuesday flight from the detention centre near Heathrow airport where he was being held.
He said the last phone call he made from his detention room to his wife, who is still in Iran with his children, was “very painful” and felt like “the last time”.
Mohammed described being surrounded by five officers in a car as he was driven to the runway in a 90-minute journey that felt like he “was going to be executed”.
“I was really puzzled. I was thinking, ‘What crime have I committed to be treated like this?’ It was very humiliating,” he said.
Fainting from fear
Confusion and dread overtook the men who found themselves suddenly on the brink of being taken thousands of kilometres away to another country and continent to the one they had sought safety in.
An Iraqi Kurd said he fainted from fear when the time came to collect him from his detention cell, forcing the officers to take him out on a stretcher, in handcuffs.
The father of four said he “would rather choose death instead of being taken to Rwanda” and begged the UK government to let him free.
Another Kurdish man from Iraq, Rasool, said he felt suicidal when the officers came to take him to the plane, saying that he could not “compare it to death, death is better”.
He said the way that the officers physically forced him out of his cell and on to the plane “reminded me of the traffickers”.
Surrounded by Home Office officials, all the men were on the plane, engines whirring, when their prayers were finally answered.
Last-minute reprieve
Rasool was the first to hear from his lawyer that a last-minute injunction meant he would no longer be taken to Rwanda that evening. He was at the airport but not yet on the aircraft when he got the phone call, but it took hours before the news trickled down to the officers surrounded him.
Mohammed was already on the plane with the other deportees, “praying for them to be strong and to be calm”, when the momentous news of their reprieve arrived.
“Some of the security guards and others were actually happy. They were hugging us. They were congratulating us,” Mohammed said. “It was clear they were just trying to obey orders. It wasn’t something that even they were comfortable with.”
As he stepped off the plane Mohammed described feeling “happy and relieved” but nevertheless “still unsure of what the future holds”.
Temporary relief as future remains unclear
Indeed, the joy and relief at having dodged an unwanted exile to Rwanda is tenuous as UK ministers who back the controversial deportation policy stepped up their commitment to see it through, despite mounting criticism and the ECHR’s ruling.
After Home Secretary Priti Patel’s first flagship UK-Rwanda deportation flight was aborted, she said the government would “not be deterred from doing the right thing and delivering our plans to control our nation’s borders”.
“Preparation for the next flight begins now,” she said.
Meanwhile, the European Court ruling on Tuesday adds impetus to plans from UK Secretary of State for Justice Dominic Raab to replace the Human Rights Act, which enshrines the ECHR in domestic law, with a new Bill of Rights.
Amid an continuing legal tussle over the government’s Rwanda plans, an increasingly hostile policy towards migrants has extended towards lawyers, who prime minister Boris Johnson suggested were “abetting the work of criminal gangs” when representing migrants.
The comments prompted the Bar Council and Law Society of England and Wales to issue a joint statement condemning the “misleading and dangerous” comments from Mr Johnson, and highlighting the UK’s confrontational tug-of-war over human rights and migrant policy.
As for the future of the men who endured the rollercoaster journey through one of the UK’s most hard-line and divisive immigration policies, the fear they experienced throughout it is indelible and, perhaps to the benefit of Home Office’s aims, has altered their view on Britain as a safe haven.
“I had finally felt safe when I arrived in the UK,” Rasool said. “I knew it was a democratic country and now I know that is a lie.”
Cinco in numbers
Dh3.7 million
The estimated cost of Victoria Swarovski’s gem-encrusted Michael Cinco wedding gown
46
The number, in kilograms, that Swarovski’s wedding gown weighed.
1,000
The hours it took to create Cinco’s vermillion petal gown, as seen in his atelier [note, is the one he’s playing with in the corner of a room]
50
How many looks Cinco has created in a new collection to celebrate Ballet Philippines’ 50th birthday
3,000
The hours needed to create the butterfly gown worn by Aishwarya Rai to the 2018 Cannes Film Festival.
1.1 million
The number of followers that Michael Cinco’s Instagram account has garnered.
What is Reform?
Reform is a right-wing, populist party led by Nigel Farage, a former MEP who won a seat in the House of Commons last year at his eighth attempt and a prominent figure in the campaign for the UK to leave the European Union.
It was founded in 2018 and originally called the Brexit Party.
Many of its members previously belonged to UKIP or the mainstream Conservatives.
After Brexit took place, the party focused on the reformation of British democracy.
Former Tory deputy chairman Lee Anderson became its first MP after defecting in March 2024.
The party gained support from Elon Musk, and had hoped the tech billionaire would make a £100m donation. However, Mr Musk changed his mind and called for Mr Farage to step down as leader in a row involving the US tycoon's support for far-right figurehead Tommy Robinson who is in prison for contempt of court.
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The 12 breakaway clubs
England
Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool, Manchester City, Manchester United, Tottenham Hotspur
Italy
AC Milan, Inter Milan, Juventus
Spain
Atletico Madrid, Barcelona, Real Madrid
The smuggler
Eldarir had arrived at JFK in January 2020 with three suitcases, containing goods he valued at $300, when he was directed to a search area.
Officers found 41 gold artefacts among the bags, including amulets from a funerary set which prepared the deceased for the afterlife.
Also found was a cartouche of a Ptolemaic king on a relief that was originally part of a royal building or temple.
The largest single group of items found in Eldarir’s cases were 400 shabtis, or figurines.
Khouli conviction
Khouli smuggled items into the US by making false declarations to customs about the country of origin and value of the items.
According to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, he provided “false provenances which stated that [two] Egyptian antiquities were part of a collection assembled by Khouli's father in Israel in the 1960s” when in fact “Khouli acquired the Egyptian antiquities from other dealers”.
He was sentenced to one year of probation, six months of home confinement and 200 hours of community service in 2012 after admitting buying and smuggling Egyptian antiquities, including coffins, funerary boats and limestone figures.
For sale
A number of other items said to come from the collection of Ezeldeen Taha Eldarir are currently or recently for sale.
Their provenance is described in near identical terms as the British Museum shabti: bought from Salahaddin Sirmali, "authenticated and appraised" by Hossen Rashed, then imported to the US in 1948.
- An Egyptian Mummy mask dating from 700BC-30BC, is on offer for £11,807 ($15,275) online by a seller in Mexico
- A coffin lid dating back to 664BC-332BC was offered for sale by a Colorado-based art dealer, with a starting price of $65,000
- A shabti that was on sale through a Chicago-based coin dealer, dating from 1567BC-1085BC, is up for $1,950
PROFILE OF SWVL
Started: April 2017
Founders: Mostafa Kandil, Ahmed Sabbah and Mahmoud Nouh
Based: Cairo, Egypt
Sector: transport
Size: 450 employees
Investment: approximately $80 million
Investors include: Dubai’s Beco Capital, US’s Endeavor Catalyst, China’s MSA, Egypt’s Sawari Ventures, Sweden’s Vostok New Ventures, Property Finder CEO Michael Lahyani
Company Profile
Name: JustClean
Based: Kuwait with offices in other GCC countries
Launch year: 2016
Number of employees: 130
Sector: online laundry service
Funding: $12.9m from Kuwait-based Faith Capital Holding
Super 30
Produced: Sajid Nadiadwala and Phantom Productions
Directed: Vikas Bahl
Cast: Hrithik Roshan, Pankaj Tripathi, Aditya Srivastav, Mrinal Thakur
Rating: 3.5 /5
Difference between fractional ownership and timeshare
Although similar in its appearance, the concept of a fractional title deed is unlike that of a timeshare, which usually involves multiple investors buying “time” in a property whereby the owner has the right to occupation for a specified period of time in any year, as opposed to the actual real estate, said John Peacock, Head of Indirect Tax and Conveyancing, BSA Ahmad Bin Hezeem & Associates, a law firm.
Subscribe to Beyond the Headlines
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Who was Peter Glaser?
- Dr Peter Glaser was a Czech-born space tech pioneer who moved to the United States in 1948 where he studied mechanical engineering at Columbia.
- He is best known as the inventor of the Solar Power Satellite, a concept which he presented in the journal Science in 1968 under the title Power from the Sun: It’s Future.
- Five years later, he was granted a US patent to supply power from space, however it was considered too large to launch economically from Earth.
- It was suggested it could be constructed in space, using lunar and asteroid materials, by a team permanently based in space, but it was never put into practice.
- He was project manager for the Apollo 11 ‘Laser Ranging Retroflecter Array’ which was installed on the moon in 1969.
- He served on several Nasa committees and was inducted into the Space Technology Hall of Fame in 1996.
- He died in 2014, aged 87
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
ICC Awards for 2021
MEN
Cricketer of the Year – Shaheen Afridi (Pakistan)
T20 Cricketer of the Year – Mohammad Rizwan (Pakistan)
ODI Cricketer of the Year – Babar Azam (Pakistan)
Test Cricketer of the Year – Joe Root (England)
WOMEN
Cricketer of the Year – Smriti Mandhana (India)
ODI Cricketer of the Year – Lizelle Lee (South Africa)
T20 Cricketer of the Year – Tammy Beaumont (England)
Killing of Qassem Suleimani
The National in Davos
We are bringing you the inside story from the World Economic Forum's Annual Meeting in Davos, a gathering of hundreds of world leaders, top executives and billionaires.
Red flags
- Promises of high, fixed or 'guaranteed' returns.
- Unregulated structured products or complex investments often used to bypass traditional safeguards.
- Lack of clear information, vague language, no access to audited financials.
- Overseas companies targeting investors in other jurisdictions - this can make legal recovery difficult.
- Hard-selling tactics - creating urgency, offering 'exclusive' deals.
Courtesy: Carol Glynn, founder of Conscious Finance Coaching
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Dubai World Cup factbox
Most wins by a trainer: Godolphin’s Saeed bin Suroor(9)
Most wins by a jockey: Jerry Bailey(4)
Most wins by an owner: Godolphin(9)
Most wins by a horse: Godolphin’s Thunder Snow(2)
Company%C2%A0profile
%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3ECompany%20name%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3Eamana%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EStarted%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3E2010%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EFounders%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20Karim%20Farra%20and%20Ziad%20Aboujeb%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EBased%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3EUAE%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3ERegulator%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3EDFSA%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3ESector%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3EFinancial%20services%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3ECurrent%20number%20of%20staff%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3E85%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EInvestment%20stage%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3ESelf-funded%3Cbr%3E%3C%2Fp%3E%0A
Specs
Engine: 51.5kW electric motor
Range: 400km
Power: 134bhp
Torque: 175Nm
Price: From Dh98,800
Available: Now
'Hocus%20Pocus%202'
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GAC GS8 Specs
Engine: 2.0-litre 4cyl turbo
Power: 248hp at 5,200rpm
Torque: 400Nm at 1,750-4,000rpm
Transmission: 8-speed auto
Fuel consumption: 9.1L/100km
On sale: Now
Price: From Dh149,900
Getting there
Flydubai flies direct from Dubai to Tbilisi from Dh1,025 return including taxes
More on Quran memorisation:
Batti Gul Meter Chalu
Producers: KRTI Productions, T-Series
Director: Sree Narayan Singh
Cast: Shahid Kapoor, Shraddha Kapoor, Divyenndu Sharma, Yami Gautam
Rating: 2/5
MATCH INFO
Euro 2020 qualifier
Ukraine 2 (Yaremchuk 06', Yarmolenko 27')
Portugal 1 (Ronaldo 72' pen)
MATCH INFO
Crawley Town 3 (Tsaroulla 50', Nadesan 53', Tunnicliffe 70')
Leeds United 0
German intelligence warnings
- 2002: "Hezbollah supporters feared becoming a target of security services because of the effects of [9/11] ... discussions on Hezbollah policy moved from mosques into smaller circles in private homes." Supporters in Germany: 800
- 2013: "Financial and logistical support from Germany for Hezbollah in Lebanon supports the armed struggle against Israel ... Hezbollah supporters in Germany hold back from actions that would gain publicity." Supporters in Germany: 950
- 2023: "It must be reckoned with that Hezbollah will continue to plan terrorist actions outside the Middle East against Israel or Israeli interests." Supporters in Germany: 1,250
Source: Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution
Last-16
France 4
Griezmann (13' pen), Pavard (57'), Mbappe (64', 68')
Argentina 3
Di Maria (41'), Mercado (48'), Aguero (90 3')
The candidates
Dr Ayham Ammora, scientist and business executive
Ali Azeem, business leader
Tony Booth, professor of education
Lord Browne, former BP chief executive
Dr Mohamed El-Erian, economist
Professor Wyn Evans, astrophysicist
Dr Mark Mann, scientist
Gina MIller, anti-Brexit campaigner
Lord Smith, former Cabinet minister
Sandi Toksvig, broadcaster
Company profile
Name: Fruitful Day
Founders: Marie-Christine Luijckx, Lyla Dalal AlRawi, Lindsey Fournie
Based: Dubai, UAE
Founded: 2015
Number of employees: 30
Sector: F&B
Funding so far: Dh3 million
Future funding plans: None at present
Future markets: Saudi Arabia, potentially Kuwait and other GCC countries
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