Congolese man starts plane riot to avoid deportation
A Congolese asylum seeker, who was being deported from Dublin to Kinshasa, created a riot on a plane in Paris and had to be escorted back here.
Three members of the Garda National Immigration Bureau accompanied the 44-year-old man on a 6.40am flight from Dublin to Paris on Thursday.
When they arrived at Charles de Gaulle Airport, the four transferred to a flight from Paris to Kinshasa, the capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo. However, the man began to incite other passengers and some of them started to abuse and spit at the three gardai.
Gardai alerted the French authorities, who sent riot police on to the plane and removed the Congolese man from the flight.
Last night the asylum seeker was back in Wheatfield Prison where he had been held, prior to his deportation attempt.
He has been in this country for the past seven years and is understood to have criminal convictions for shoplifting and public order offences. It is now likely that he will be deported on a specially chartered flight.
Most deportations are now carried out on charter flights with the costs shared by EU member states.
In the past year, the deportation rate for failed asylum seekers has almost doubled, resulting in a total of 236 being sent back to their home countries, compared with 129 the previous year.
- Tom Brady Security Editor
Irish Independent
