Britain’s first Muslim peer (Lord) has resigned from that country’s Labour Party after it emerged that he blamed a recent prison sentence for dangerous driving from pressure placed on the courts by Jews “who own newspapers and TV channels.”
Lord Ahmed has insisted that he does not recall making the remarks, although the London Sunday Times has obtained a copy of radio program broadcast in Pakistan where he specifically used those and other words.
The London Times reported on 14 March that Lord Ahmed, who was jailed in 2009 for sending text messages shortly before his car was in a fatal motorway crash, said that he should have been sentenced by a magistrate but pressure had been placed on the courts to charge him with a more serious offence because of his support for Palestinians.
“My case became more critical because I went to Gaza to support Palestinians. My Jewish friends who own newspapers and TV channels opposed this.”
He said the judge who had sentenced him had been appointed to the High Court after helping a “Jewish colleague” of Tony Blair during “an important case”, the newspaper added.
The Jewish Supremacist who currently leads the British Labour Party, Ed Miliband, went on record as condemning Ahmed’s comments, and the peer was subsequently suspended from that party.
“There’s no place for anti-semitism in the Labour Party, and frankly anybody who makes those kinds of comments cannot be either a Labour lord or a Labour member of Parliament,” Miliband was quoted as saying.
Earlier, Miliband claimed he was a Zionist and that he opposed boycotts of Israel—even though that state has racist anti-gentile laws and forbids immigration by non-Jews.
Ahmed was jailed for 12 weeks, but was freed by the Court of Appeal after serving 16 days of the sentence because of “exceptional” mitigation relating to his community work.
The 55-year-old Pakistan-born businessman and Labour Party activist was appointed to the House of Lords by Tony Blair in 1998. He was one of the first three Muslim peers.
