Birmingham Four: An Utterly Islamophobic Verdict by a Jury Who Didn’t Care

Birmingham: The legal team of two men sentenced to life imprisonment for involvement in a terrorist bomb plot have spoken out about concerns about police corruption, the planting of evidence and falsifying of notebooks. In a new documentary screened a few weeks ago, in South London, the Birmingham Six’s lawyer Gareth Pierce claimed that the circumstances leading to the conviction of Naweed Ali, Khobaib Hussain, Mohibur Rahman and Tahir Aziz were ‘like being in a timewarp’. ‘There were cases in the 1970s and the early 1980s where West Midlands Police planted and fabricated evidence to such an extent that the squad responsible was completely disbanded and dozens of defendants convicted, one by one had their convictions quashed,’ said Peirce, who represents Ali and Hussain. ‘This case rests on the police fabrication and mendacity in the clearest way.’

The men (known as the Birmingham Four) were sentenced to life in 2017 after the jury accepted that they were a terrorist cell planning to hit military and police targets. Their trial played out against a backdrop of terrorist atrocities including the Manchester Arena bombing and the London Bridge attack. Three of the four men had previous terrorist convictions – Ali and Hussain travelled to Pakistan to attend a training camp but came back within two days when their families discovered where they were and insisted they return. Rahman also spent time in prison accused of possession of a publication with terrorist content.

The new documentary is presented by the former Guantanamo Bay detainee Moazzam Begg, now director of the CAGE. ‘During the trial, there had been four separate terrorist attacks,’ defence barrister Stephen Kamlish QC recalled. ‘People were getting increasingly nervous and scared about being the next victim. Who’s going to let somebody – let alone, a Muslim with a beard accused of terrorism – out at this time? It was just an utterly Islamophobic verdict by this jury who didn’t care that the whole of the evidence was bent.’