FOUR RIOT police in the UK have been charged with beating of a man who they were arresting on terrorism charges n 2003.
36-year-old Babar Ahmad was arrested in his home in southwest London in December 2003 and is now facing extradition to the United States on terrorism charges.
During the raid, Ahmad was allegedly beaten, choked and subjected to religious verbal abuse – during which officers allegedly forced him into a praying position and shouted; “Where is your God now? Pray to him!”.
He was released six days later.
The charges
“Mr Ahmad suffered a number of injuries during that arrest, including heavy bruising to the head, neck, wrists and feet,” said Simon Clements, head of the Crown Prosecution Service’s Special Crime Division.
“Our conclusion is that there is sufficient evidence and it is in the public interest to charge four of the officers involved in the arrest of Mr Ahmad with causing actual bodily harm to him.”
It has been reported that before the raid, the police were informed that Ahmad was believed to be be connected to al Qaeda and was the head of a south London terrorist group.
Police Constables Nigel Cowley, John Donohue, Roderick James-Bowen and Mark Jones from the Met’s Territorial Support Group will appear before magistrates on September 22.
“I am pleased that the CPS has decided that a jury will hear the evidence in this case and it will now be for the jury to determine whether any police officer should be punished for the assault upon me in December 2003,” Ahmad said in a statement.
Extradition to the USA
Although he has never been charged with any crime, Admad was re-arrested in 2004 in connection with another terrorism charge – for allegedly soliciting funds for rebels in Chechnya and Afghanistan on the internet during the 1990s.
He has spent the past six years in custody, waiting to hear a ruling on is High Court appeal regarding whether his extradition to the United States would contravene the European Convention on Human Rights.
Admad has already been granted £60,000 in compensation from the Metropolitan police in 2009, after police commissioner Sir Paul Stephenson admitted that he had been the victim of a “prolonged attack”.
Criticisms of the Territorial Support Group
The Metropolitan police’s Territorial Support Group (TSG) has recently come under pressure to show that it hold officers accountable for their conduct when interacting with the public.
The public were outraged following a ruling concerning the death of Ian Tomlinson during the G20 protests.
Video footage showed Tomlinson being violently pushed by a police officer, in an unprovoked attack, as he walked home from work through the protests. Tomlinson later died of injuries suspected to have been caused by the incident.
The public were outraged that a police inquest concluded that the officer in question could not be charged with manslaughter.
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