AN asylum seeker who has been charged with raping a 15-year-old girl is due in court next week.

Anicet Mayela, 40, is due to in Oxford Crown Court on Friday (August 9) after being charged with one count of raping a young girl.

It was heard that Mayela, of Desborough Crescent, Oxford, is accused of raping a girl between December 1 and December 31 last year.

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He was due in court at the end of May. However, the case was delayed.

Mayela, who was once campaigning outside a detention centre holding a sign stating: “Migrants are not criminals”, is currently remanded in custody while awaiting sentencing.

The defendant has been fighting against his return to the Republic of the Congo after arriving in the UK in 2004, claiming ‘his life was at risk’.

An attempt was made to deport him but he was allegedly injured in an isolation cell near Heathrow Airport so was then held at Campsfield House Detention Centre in Kidlington.

A second attempt was made in May 2005 but it is alleged air crew staff prevented the plane from taking off.

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Mayela, a former economics student, then won his leave to remain after lawyers said that deportation would be against his human rights.

He then began his campaign for anti-deportation before the attack on the young girl in 2023.

It is unknown whether the court hearing will impact his status.