BLAIR'S MUSLIM GUARD GETS THE AXE
A muslim firearms officer has been moved from an elite protection unit in London because of the mosque his children attended.Pc Amjad Farooq, 39, was told he was deemed a security threat because the mosque's imam was linked to a suspected terrorist group.
Pc Farooq, whose job would have included guarding Tony Blair and the US embassy, is claiming unfair dismissal.
He also says he was told his presence might upset the American secret service.
The case raises fresh concerns over the way Muslim officers are treated in the Met.
Last month it emerged that a Muslim firearms officer had been excused from guarding the Israeli embassy because he was worried about his family's links with Lebanon.
Pc Alexander Basha has since taken up duties outside the embassy.
Pc Farooq was a firearms specialist with Wiltshire Constabulary when he was transferred to the Diplomatic Protection Group SO16 which provides protection at diplomatic, government and police sites in the capital.
All officers within the DPG are required to undergo security vetting including a counter-terrorism check.
Six weeks after he started working for the unit, in December 2003, he was approached by a senior Special Branch detective who told him he had failed the check.
He referred to the fact that two of Pc Farooq's five children, sons aged nine and 11, had attended their local mosque for religious studies when the building was associated with an imam whom the police suspected of links to an extremist Islamic group.
Pc Farooq strongly denies any such links or inappropriate behaviour.
He has lodged an employment tribunal claim on the grounds of race and religious discrimination.
He is expected to argue that his colleagues feared what American secret service agents would think if he was posted to guard the US embassy in Grosvenor Square.
It is believed that Pc Farooq is the first person to have his counter terrorism check withdrawn.
He challenged the decision and appealed to the security vetting appeal panel which is organised by the Cabinet Office — led by the Prime Minister.
But the Met refused to disclose any of the evidence for the allegations on the grounds of national security.
Pc Farooq's appeal will challenge the process so that he can be represented by a special advocate who would test the Met's national security arguments that led to his removal.
After being denied clearance he was transferred to Hammersmith & Fulham police from the DPG.
He claims that when he went back to the DPG he was searched in a room in front of other officers.
Pc Farooq's solicitor, Lawrence Davies, of the law firm Equal Justice, told The Independent: 'We live in a society where it is possible to point a finger at a Muslim abroad and say that they have weapons of mass destruction and are a threat to national security and no questions are asked.
'Now those who 'protect' us feel emboldened to point the same finger at British Muslims.'
Inayat Bunglawala, assistant secretary-general of the Muslim Council of Britain, said the case would not come as a great surprise to many British Muslims.
He said: 'Smear and innuendo appear increasingly to have taken the place of hard evidence when it comes to finding Muslims guilty of misdemeanours.'
Pc Farooq declined to comment on the case.
The Met refused to comment in detail on the case saying only it had received the employment tribunal claim. There was a storm of protest this month after it emerged that the son of jailed hate preacher Abu Hamza got a job working on London Underground because bosses had failed to carry out security checks on his background. Mohammed Kamel Mostafa, 25, was employed despite being having served three years in Yemen in 1999 for his part in plotting a bombing campaign against British tourists. London Underground was forced to admit they “do not make” criminal checks on everyone who works on the network — the most crowded metro in the world and used by 3.3 million people a day. Security was supposed to have been dramatically increased in the wake of the 7 July atrocities.
+ News Source: Metro
+ Link: http://www.metro.co.uk/news/article.html?in_article_id=24134&in_page_id=34
+ Last Updated: 2006-11-08 10:36:02
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