Trials of the British justice system

“Be mindful my dear
Of what you say and do
If you tell lies about me
I’ll tell the truth about you.”
From Dhoka Cola
by Bachchoo

Putting my signature on an e-petition demanding that Iran surrender its nuclear capability has not had any effect. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad, in all probability didn’t even notice that I, with several hundred others, had signed it. Maybe his secretary just deleted it from the computer.
Despite my scepticism about these e-causes, I have signed petitions to save the whale, for instance, even though I have never eaten whale meat and have not knowingly used any by-product of blubber — unless they put it in the Japanese soap which someone gave me for Christmas. It would be quite another question if I was asked to sign a petition to save the Bombay Duck. Answer: “No!” I have never thought of Bombay Ducks (is that the plural?) as being sentient creatures and as such would eat them as readily as a donkey would eat grass with no thought for the destruction of the environment or the disturbance of ecological balance.
I arrive then at a petition which I found myself today ready to sign.
It concerns one Babar Ahmad who is to be extradited to the United States together with four other people, including the Finsbury Park bogeyman, Abu Hamza.
This week the European Court of Human Rights rejected the appeal of the five extraditees who all face charges in the US of being terrorists or aiding them. The charges are specific and include incitement to kidnap American citizens, laundering money on behalf of international terror organisations, organising terror camps and being intermediaries in the affairs and plans of the late Osama bin Laden (Fish be upon him).
Their appeal to the European court was based on the contention that they wouldn’t get fair trials and that they would face cruel and inhuman treatment — meaning torture — in American prisons. The judges ruled that they would be tried fairly and that American detention was very unlikely to subject them to torture.
So the five, including Hamza, await deportation. Hamza is the best known of the quintet. A commentator on a BBC programme said he needed as much introduction to the TV audience as Frank Sinatra. You couldn’t make Hamza up. He is the living embodiment of truth defying invention. If one were to caricature a jihadi loudmouth who preached terror and sent people to their deaths strapped to bombs, but wouldn’t venture to do it himself, Hamza would be your best model.
The case against Hamza or his extradition, though he is innocent until proved guilty, is not what bothers me. I am signing nothing on his behalf. In fact, I think I can prove he is a liar. He has convinced the British and world press that he was injured while fighting the Russians in Afghanistan. When the Russians were in Afghanistan, and for several years after, I worked as a British TVwallah and one of the companies which I commissioned has video footage of Hamza in Pakistan with his eyes and his hand intact — no glass eye, no hook.
The video was shot after the Russians left Afghanistan forever. So Hamza was not injured fighting them but may possibly have been handling explosives without the proper expertise or caution and done himself this dreadful mischief, being patched up by some doctor in a remote jihadi training camp. I am not saying I have proof of any of that. It’s a conjecture, but by putting a clip of the video YouTube may get more hits than the song Kolaveri di.
But to the point: Babur Ahmad has spent eight years in a British jail without being tried for any offence. The British authorities held him because he was, with a partner, another detainee and prospective deportee, allegedly running a website which “supported terrorism and conspired to kill, kidnap, maim or injure persons or damage property in a foreign country”. They are also accused of money-laundering on behalf of terrorist organisations.
Nevertheless the police and the public prosecutors of Britain have not charged Ahmad with any offence. Nine years ago the British police raided Ahmad’s home and took away material which they passed on to the US authorities instead of handing it over to the British department of public prosecutions which would then have decided if there was enough evidence to prosecute him for offences committed by a British citizen (he was born in the UK) on British soil.
It is only fair to point out that the British government has not kept Ahmad hanging about without trial for no reason — as could have been his fate in a country with fewer human rights. He has remained in jail because it has taken eight years for him to appeal and now to lose the battle to be extradited to the US. The various appeals took this long.
No explanation has been given by the British authorities for not trying him here and not letting him out on bail, pending extradition. Ahmad’s support group, among them very many people who are in no sense sympathetic to terror, still demand that he be tried for any offence he may have committed in this country. They contend that even if he was found guilty, he would have served eight years of any sentence already.
Karl Watkin, a British businessman with no connection to Islam or jihadists, has taken up Ahmad’s case purely on the ground that he opposes the extradition treaty which sanctions the deportation of British citizens to the US. He has, ironically, in order to save Ahmad, brought a private prosecution against him for violations of the Terrorism Act 2000. The British home office will now decide if such a prosecution in a British court should take place and its sentence carried out before Ahmad is put on a plane to the US beyond the reach of British justice.