A deportee twice successfully thwarted attempts to put her on an aircraft back home by feigning sickness on one occasion and causing a disturbance on the second as the aircraft was about to leave, a court heard yesterday.
Mennana Boukalkoula (32), from Casablanca, Morocco, with an address at Little Britain Street, Dublin, was jailed for nine months for punching and trying to bite an immigration officer aboard an Aer Lingus flight and for ripping a flap off a window. She denied assault and criminal damage.
Judge Gerard Haughton said she had engaged in deliberate and conscious effort to avoid her lawful deportation.
"She fought the case tooth and nail and told a tissue of lies in doing so," he said.
Dublin District Court heard she had been working here for two years with the Moroccan embassy when she got into a dispute and her passport was taken from her.
In July last year the Minister for Justice, Mr McDowell, signed a deportation order, and on August 22nd arrangements were made to take her back to Morocco. She was accompanied aboard the aircraft by immigration officers but said she felt sick and was taken off again.
She was brought to Beaumont Hospital and given a clean bill of health.
She was kept in Mountjoy Jail after being discharged from hospital, and a week later officers again took her to Dublin Airport where she behaved normally until she was about to get on to the flight.
Officers told the court she collapsed on the floor "like a rag doll". She was put into a seat at the back of the aircraft and remained limp in her seat until the aircraft began to move.
An Aer Lingus cabin manager, Ms Clodagh O'Driscoll, said she then started "wailing like a banshee". She ignored requests to stop and started to lash out and hit the gardaí who were sitting either side of her.
She was prevented from doing this but managed to grab hold of the shutter on the window and pulled it off. At that stage it was decided she could not be controlled and would have to be taken off and the aircraft was stopped.
She had applied for asylum following the first unsuccessful deportation order and was frightened to return to Morocco.