A Somali refugee with up to 18 convictions including firearm and drug offences has spent five years attempting to stop his deportation back to Somalia, despite the Court of Appeal ruling against him twice.

An asylum seeker's lawyers argued on Tuesday that he should not to be deported back to Somalia on the basis that he would be under threat of violence and in breach of his human rights, according to The Times.

Identified only as MS, the 30-year old refugee has accumulated 18 convictions including drugs, firearms and theft offences, which were reportedly committed between 2006 and 2015, as well as a further seven miscellaneous offences.

His lawyers previous two attempts to grant him access to stay in the UK were overturned by the Court of Appeal.

The human rights argument stems from the fact that he is a member of the minority Ashraf clan, which is currently subject to brutality and persecution by recognised terrorist group Al-Shaabab, according to the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada (IRB).

The case will now go back to the immigration tribunal in this legal battle that has now lasted five years.

MS has already been tagged and had his asylum status removed as well as ordered to pay a 'victim surcharge'.

If deported, he could become the target of violence, meaning UK courts must consider such as a decision to be a breach of his human rights not to be 'subjected to inhuman or degrading treatment', according to Article 3 of the Human Rights Act (HRA).

The article in HRA prevents deportations of people to countries where they face a serious risk of being tortured.

However, during a case in 2013 concerning the deportation of a Somalian asylum seeker from Sweden, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) declared that the situation in Mogadishu had "improved" to a level that deportation would not be contrary to Article 3.

MS's family fled from Somalia and arrived in Britain in 2002, following the overthrow of the socialist military government in 1991 and the subsequent descent of the country into civil war, which persists to this day.

They were granted refugee status in 2011, with the exception of MS who already had a criminal record. He was ultimately granted asylum in 2012.

Al-Shaabab was one of the groups which emerged out of the chaos of the Somali civil war. It is a militant Islamist organisation and an African offshoot of Al-Qaeda.

There has been a sharp increase in concern and nationalist sentiment among European populations in response to the scale of the influx of refugees from African and the Middle East into Europe since the beginning of the European refugee crisis in 2015.

The flow of refugees has largely been caused by the mass displacement of people resulting from the civil wars in Libya and Syria.