The first flight scheduled to take asylum seekers from the UK to Rwanda will not depart as planned on Tuesday after a last-minute legal battle, the Home Office has told the BBC.
The Boeing 767 that was due to take the asylum seekers to Rwanda on the runway at Boscombe Down, a Ministry of Defence base in Wiltshire. Photo: AFP
Up to seven people had been expected to be removed to the east African country but the flight was cancelled after the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) stepped in.
It followed a UK court saying the flight could go ahead, and came after a series of legal challenges in Britain failed.
The flight had been due to take off at 10.30am (UK time) from a military airport in Wiltshire but after a series of linked judgments in Strasbourg and London all passengers were removed from it.
In a statement hours before the flight's planned departure, the ECtHR said it had granted an "urgent interim measure" in the case of an Iraqi man, known only as "KN".
It said such requests were only granted on an "exceptional basis, when the applicants would otherwise face a real risk of irreversible harm".
That decision contradicted a ruling by judges in London, who had found no immediate risk to those being sent to Rwanda.
A UK High Court judge ruled last Friday that there should be a full review of the Rwanda removals policy - but that the Home Secretary Priti Patel would be acting lawfully if in the meantime she sent some asylum seekers to Rwanda.
Should the policy be found to be unlawful some people could be returned to the UK from Rwanda.
Earlier, Prime Minister Boris Johnson said he would not be deterred from the policy and said the government had always known it would be a "long process" with lots of legal challenges.
Home Secretary Priti Patel and the UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson are intent on bringing in the Rwanda policy. Photo: AFP / UK Parliamentary Recording Unit
-BBC