Up to seven people had been expected to be removed to the east African country on Tuesday evening.
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.
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 22:30 BST 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 contradicts a ruling by judges in London, who had found no immediate risk to those being sent to Rwanda.