Champion of Kashmiri Separatists and Khalistanis, Pak-born Lord Convicted of Sex Offences against Kids
Pakistan-born Lord Nazir Ahmed, long a self-styled champion of Kashmiri separatism, has been convicted by the Sheffield Crown Court of sexual offences against two children.
And Pakistan-born member of the House of Commons Imran Ahmed Khan, accused of assaulting a 15-year-old boy, is due to face a two-week trial in March.
Nazir Ahmed, who was a Labour Party peer before it expelled him, was convicted of a serious sexual assault against a boy, and of attempting to rape a girl when he was a teenager in the 1970s. The conviction followed a long and painstaking police investigation.
Major offences
Prosecutor Tom Little had told the court that Nazir Ahmed had attempted to rape a girl when he was 17 and she was much younger. Around the same time, he sexually assaulted a boy aged 11, the court was told.
The key to solving the case after a long gap came by way of a phone recording of a conversation between the two victims in 2016. Little told the court that the recordings were evidence that the complaints against Nazir Ahmed were not made up.
The woman victim called the male after he had sent her an email saying, “I have evidence against that paedophile.”
Two of Nazir Ahmed’s brothers, Mohammed Farouq, 71, and Mohammed Tariq, 65, were also charged with indecent assault on the same boy. The charges against them did not proceed because they were considered unfit to stand trial. But the jury found they too had in fact abused the same boy.
In November 2020 a conduct committee of the House of Commons had concluded that Nazir Ahmed had sexually and emotionally exploited a woman. Nazir Ahmed resigned from the House of Lords following that finding. This was the first recommendation ever for expulsion of a peer from the House of Lords.
Nazir Ahmed was due to appear before a Labour Party executive committee over anti-Semitic remarks he made in an interview on a television station in Pakistan. He was expected to be expelled from the party at that meeting. He quit the party two days before that.
In 2009, Nazir Ahmed was jailed for 12 weeks after he admitted to sending text messages while driving shortly before the Jaguar car he was behind the wheel of rammed into a stationary vehicle on a motorway, killing the driver.
Nazir Ahmed, who has continued to describe himself as lord following his expulsion from the House of Lords, has taken the lead in gathering Kashmiri separatists and Khalistanis in organising demonstrations outside the Indian High Commission in London. He was one of the main speakers at a Khalistani rally held in Trafalgar Square in London in 2018.
Nazir Ahmed has been instrumental in moves to bring Khalistanis and Kashmiri separatists together on a single platform against India. But the turnout at those protests has dwindled sharply over the past couple of years. On the last occasion, Nazir Ahmed appeared outside the Indian High Commission with no more than about a dozen persons that he could command. Kashmiris and Khalistanis too appear to have turned their back on the man they had chosen as their common leader.
Not the only one
Meanwhile, Conservative MP Imran Ahmad Khan from Wakefield in West Yorkshire, not far from Rotherham that Nazir Ahmed had been declared lord of, faces trial over allegations of sexual assault against a 15-year-boy from Staffordshire.
The case will be heard at the Southwark Crown Court from March 21. The MP was charged with sexual assault in June this year. He has since been an independent after losing the Conservative Party whip, and suspension from the party.
The MP appeared at the Old Bailey court in September, and entered a plea of ‘not guilty’. He said he denies the allegations against him “in the strongest terms”. He has been released on unconditional bail.
Staffordshire police say they investigated the case for a year before sending it to the Crown Prosecution Service to pursue in court.
Khan had earlier been popular in the Conservative party for winning a seat long held by Labour. He won in 2019 with a majority of 3,358. Before joining politics he worked for the United Nations in Mogadishu.
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