A man was allegedly forcibly tied up and dragged back to his seat in economy on a British Airways flight to Jamaica after going to business class to stretch his legs.

65-year-old Kwame Bantu, who suffers from cancer and diabetes, told MailOnline that he saw his leg swelling one hour into the long haul flight, and began to feel dizzy. He moved into business class to "get some room to stretch [his] leg" but was "ambushed" by six members of staff who forcibly dragged him back to his seat in economy class.

Mr Bantu detailed that "they refused to listen about my medical illness...I was treated like a slave."

"I can understand if they thought I was going to be violent but [the restraints] stopped my blood from circulating.

'It's when some of the other passengers expressed their concern for me that they stopped the plane and landed to kick us out."

A fellow passenger, identified as Joy Stoney, allegedly intervened in the fracas - and was subsequently ejected from the plane herself when it diverted to the Portuguese island of Terceira. Ms Stoney said that the crew's treatment of Kwame was "inhuman" and that they refused him access to the plane's bathrooms, despite his diabetic condition.

She said: "What alarmed me the most was when he wanted to urinate...He was holding his crotch area for a while and it was horrible to see. I called the steward manager to come see me and told her I would escort him to the toilet myself. They said, 'He needs to defecate himself in the chair'"

Mr Bantu and Ms Stoney were ejected from the flight without their luggage - and claim that they have received no help from the British consulate to return to the UK.

British Airways told the Independent: "We take great care to handle these difficult situations as sensitively as possible. Our cabin crew and one of our pilots repeatedly asked a customer to return to his booked seat in economy after he sat in our business class cabin without permission. He repeatedly refused, verbally abused crew members and disturbed other customers."

"As a last resort, our cabin crew felt they had no option but to restrain the customer in the interests of the safety of everyone on board and helped him walk back to his original seat."