Resistance

The deportation of a young Afghan man refused asylum by the [UK] Government has been dramatically stayed after the pilot of the plane he was supposed to be removed on refused to take off.

Samim Bigzad’s friends and family feared their efforts to prevent him being forced back to Kabul had failed when he was detained and booked on commercial flight to Afghanistan via Istanbul.

[...]

Mr Bigzad was repeatedly threatened by the Taliban because of his work for a construction company that had contracts with the Afghan government and American firms – both regarded as enemies by the Islamist insurgents.

After receiving phone calls telling him he would be beheaded by militants who knew where he lived and worked, he risked his life to reach the UK via Turkey, Greece and France, almost suffocating in a lorry from Calais.

He arrived in Britain in November 2015, moving to Kent to join relatives and care for his father, a British citizen and former Afghan national who suffers from mental illness after being imprisoned and tortured by the Taliban in the 1990s.

But Mr Bigzad was refused asylum and denied permission to appeal.

[...]

Campaigners travelled to Heathrow Airport to talk to unwitting passengers due to be on the same Turkish Airlines flight, in the hope they would raise objections to crew members.

[...]

Bridget Chapman, who organised the trip, said activists “very quietly” approached tourists at the check-in gate to explain their flight was being used to forcibly deport Mr Bigzad.

“We asked people to do whatever they were comfortable with raising it with airline staff,” she told The Independent.

[...]

[C]ampaigners “genuinely thought they had failed” when the flight eventually took off 45 minutes late.

But later that evening she received a message from a British woman who had been hosting Mr Bigzad in Margate saying he was back in a UK detention centre.

[...]

“We don’t know the name of the pilot but there are so many people who would like to thank him.”

[...]

Regulations issued by the European Aviation Safety Agency state that a pilot is responsible for the “safety of the aircraft and of all crew members, passengers and cargo on board”, giving them power over who boards the plane and when or if it takes off.

[...]

“Samim said they were in the tunnel by the door when the pilot came out and said: ‘You’re not going to take him, I’m not flying. Someone’s life is at risk.’

“The guards took him back to Brook House – I really don’t know what will happen next.”

  UK Independent

Assume it was a Turkish pilot. I don't know.