The ‘injustice felt’ for the potential wrongful conviction of the Birmingham Four was raised in parliament by the MP for Birmingham Perry Bar, Ayoub Khan, during a debate about government support for West Midlands Police on Tuesday.
The Birmingham Four case (see PROOF issue 6) saw the conviction of four Muslim men, Khobaib Hussain, Naweed Ali, Mohibur Rahman and Tahir Aziz in 2017 for terrorism-related charges following a covert operation by West Midlands Police. The four men were convicted and sentenced to life in prison with each getting between 15 and 20 years
Khan said many of his constituents had expressed their concerns about the convictions, which were based on dodgy evidence from undercover officers. The undercover operation involved the four men becoming involved as drivers for vans in a courier business which had been created by the police. The vans had been equipped with surveillance equipment but there was allegedly little evidence of any criminal activity found.
Khan explained there were concerns about the potential planting of evidence. The prosecution case had hinged on a bag containing incriminating items which were allegedly discovered in Ali’s car just an hour after he had given access to the undercover officers. The undercover officers involved had allegedly ‘openly admitted’ to being accused of planting evidence in other cases and ‘later bragged about their ‘Oscar performance’ while delivering evidence in court.’ Lawyer in the case, Stephen Kamlish KC, has called the verdict ‘utterly Islamophobic’ by a jury ‘who didn’t care that the whole of the evidence was bent’.
Khan also emphasized that key CCTV footage was withheld from the jury which would have shown the undercover officer alone with Ali’s car. There was also no conclusive DNA evidence or further proof to tie the men to having the bag, or to having bought the incriminating items within it.
Concerns arose at the time of trial surrounding the evidence from the main prosecution witness who was an undercover officer under the alias of ‘Vincent’. Despite ‘Vincent’ and his colleagues insisting they had not been in contact during the trial, evidence was produced which showed more than 1,000 deleted messages between Vincent and other undercover officers.
During his comments, Khan emphasized: ‘We all know about the Birmingham Six’ who were wrongly convicted on police lies. The Justice Gap has previously reported on the parallels which can be drawn between the two cases.
The case was raised as part of a wider debate relating to problems within the West Midlands police which was said to be short of 1,700 officers. Khan noted insufficient efforts had been made to adjust the presence of police officers for population growth. He claims that the scarcity of additional police and community support officers jeopardizes the security of the people and the ability to tackle crime in the area.
