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November 8, 2006

UK: Policeman Demoted For Links With Extremist Islam

News from various sources, inlcuding the Daily Mail, This is London, Guardian, and the BBC reports that a UK policeman removed from duties guarding high profile public figures, is suing the Metropolitan Police. The reason for 39-year old PC Amjad Farooq being removed from the Diplomatic Protection Group (SO16 or DPG) is that he was considered a security risk.

This risk stems from his association with a mosque which has been linked with extremism. Farooq attended this mosque and his lawyer, Lawrence Davies, has said that his client has suffered discrimination. He said: "We live in a society where it is possible to point a finger at a Muslim abroad and say that they have WMD and are a threat to national security and no questions are asked..... Muslims are labelled guilty by association. Doubt is insufficient to save them. They are assumed guilty before being proven innocent. We are very close to living in the days of Salem."

Two of Farooq's four children attended this mosque when he was a firearms specialist assigned to Wiltshire Constabulary. In December 2003, Farooq failed his counter-terrorism check (CTC) after being accepted into the DPG and transferred from Wiltshire. He had been working for the DPG for six weeks before being told he had not passed his security vetting. This decision was influenced by MI5, and it is suggested that US intelligence also had an influence in this decision.

Peter Smyth of the Metropolitan Police Federation said that security vetting should have been carried out before the transfer was made. He said: "All police employees should be vetted before they are recruited and given a contract. It seems to us a bit perverse to do otherwise. If these checks had been carried out in advance then presumably he would not have been accepted as a transfer from Wiltshire."

A spokesman for Scotland Yard has said: "We carry out appropriate vetting of officers and staff throughout their careers. The level of vetting increases according to the sensitivity of the roles that officers and staff have to perform. We have an excellent relationship with the Association of Muslim Police who have recently stated that the vetting process is used appropriately and 'not indiscriminately'."

The Metropolitan Police has stood by its decision to withdraw Faroog's contract with the DPG.

What is strange about this case is that PC Farooq has waited THREE YEARS before bringing this case. The fact that he had moved to London to start work before being told he had failed his security vetting obviously must have caused the officer some inconvenience. And by not clearing him before allowing him to take up the post, the Metropolitan Police failed in its duties to Farooq, but also failed in their duties to the general public.

Farooq's lawyer said he could not talk about specific details of the case. Lawrence Davies said: "The culture of fear we have in this country now, means that if a Muslim officer makes the same request, the press say that the police have lost control and senior police officers speak of mutiny in the ranks."

Farooq remained at Wiltshire Constabulary until six weeks ago, when he moved to a semi-detached home in Gloucester.

The mosque which is the center of controversy is the Jamia Masjid in Broad Street, Swindon. Over the past year, three attacks made against the mosque. In October last year, a 16-year old youth was found guilty of daubing racist graffiti an the mosque walls and setting a fire there on October 4. On February 8 this year, windows were smashed, and on August 17, more graffiti was painted on the exterior walls, and a petrol bomb was thrown at the doorway.

The reason for PC Amjad Farooq being failed in his CTC vetting relates to the situation in 2003, more than the current situation at the mosque. A cleric at that time was involved in extremism. He had links with the group Sipah-e-Sahaba (Sipah-i-Sahaba) an extremist Sunni group which was placed on the UK government's list of banned groups in October, 2005.

The imam at the mosque three years ago still lives in Swindon. He is currently in Pakistan, and will not be returning until September. The fact that a so-called British national, who has links with a group which is known for carrying out terror attacks, is allowed to have a passport and travel freely between Britain and Pakistan, where the terrorist group is based, is surely more of a scandal than PC Farooq's job transfer being rejected.

The group Sipah-e-Sahaba organizes terror attacks against Shia Muslims, and has used car bombs and other methods to kill other Muslims. It was formed in 1985 in Jhang in the Punjab province of Pakistan, allegedly with the full approval of the Islamist dictator Zia ul-Haq. It wants Pakistan to be a Sunni state and is of the extreme Deobandi strand of Sunni Islam, which provided all of the main leaders of the Afghanistan Taliban and believes women should be veiled and suppressed.

One of its main founders, Maulana Haq Nawaz Jhangvi, was assassinated on February 23, 1990. The group wants Shia to be considered as infidels, and has mounted hundreds of targeted killing of Shias within Pakistan. It has been linked with Ramzi Ahmed Yousuf, who carried out the first World Trade Center Bombing and became a senior planer within Al Qaeda.

Inayat Bunglawala of the Muslim Council of Britain, who in the past has praised Sheikh Omar Abdel-Rahman, who ordered the first World Trade Center bombing, as "courageous", said of Farooq's case: "Smear and innuendo appear increasingly to have taken the place of hard evidence when it comes to finding Muslims guilty of misdemeanours."

Bunglawala has also praised Osama bin Laden as "a freedom fighter".

Members of the Swindon mosque have defended PC Farooq. Azim Khan, the secretary of the Jamia Masjid, said: "He would not hurt a fly. These allegations are ridiculous, to associate him with people like Abu Hamza [an extremist] is laughable. There was a time, three years ago, when there were disagreements on the mosque committee, but it was nothing to do with terrorism and these people have left. You can't be blamed, just for knowing someone."

Maybe not. But one should not be employed protecting senior figures if you have chosen to attend a mosque where an extremist has preached. The mosque imam was removed from the mosque three years ago. But this was the time when Farooq was rejected for the sensitive role in the DPG.

For him and his lawyer to now mount a case smacks of publicity seeking and making political capital. There is something suspicious about all this. Why, after so many years as a police constable (the lowest rank), has Farooq never been promoted? Maybe he values his status as a Muslim more than he values upholding the values of the law and order without partiality.

Posted by Giraldus Cambrensis at November 8, 2006 8:17 PM

Comments

Posted by: FreedomSeeker33 at November 9, 2006 5:53 AM

Posted by: Hungarian Crusader at November 9, 2006 3:45 PM

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