Muslim Officer Sacked From Guarding Tony Blair

Yeah, Tony Blair may do his share of sucking up to the Islamofascists every once in awhile, but he knows on which side his ass is buttered:


An experienced Muslim firearms officer has begun race and religious discrimination proceedings against the Metropolitan Police after he was removed from a close-protection unit guarding senior dignitaries, including Tony Blair. Amjad Farooq, 39, a father of five, was told he was a threat to national security because his children had attended a mosque associated with a Muslim cleric linked to a suspected terrorist group.

The officer was also told that his presence might upset the American secret service which worked closely with the Met's close-protection group.


Pastorius note: LOL! Oh yeah, blame it on the Americans. Heh!


His case raises further concerns about the treatment of Muslim firearms officers working in Metropolitan Police Force. Last month, at the height of the conflict in southern Lebanon, PC Alexander Basha was excused from guarding the Israeli embassy in Kensington Palace Gardens, central London, because of concern about his family links with Lebanon.

PC Farooq was told he would not be transferred until he had received full counter-terrorism clearance. On 16 December 2003, he was approached by a detective chief superintendent from Special Branch who informed him that he had failed his CTC. By then, PC Farooq had been working for the DPG for six weeks.

The Met told the officer that they had evidence to justify the refusal of the CTC and referred to the fact that PC Farooq's children, two sons aged 9 and 11, had attended their local mosque for religious studies when the building was associated with an iman whom the police suspected of links to an extremist Islamic group. Mr Farooq strongly denies any such links or inappropriate behaviour.

At a tribunal to be held next year, Mr Farooq is expected to say that his colleagues had said words to the effect of "what will the American secret service make of him when he turns up there?" [referring to the likelihood that PC Farooq would be posted to duty at the US embassy in Grosvenor Square, London].

It is understood that the officer is the first person to have his CTC vetting status withdrawn.

Inayat Bunglawala, assistant secretary-general of the Muslim Council of Britain, said details of Mr Farooq's case would "not come as a great surprise to many British Muslims. Smear and innuendo appear increasingly to have taken the place of hard evidence when it comes to finding Muslims guilty of misdemeanours. There is no suggestion that Amjad Farooq himself represented any kind of security risk or that the cleric in the mosque had been convicted of any actual crime."

Dr Ghayasuddin Siddiqui, leader of the "British Muslim Parliament" , said: "Unless the individual has close links with a terrorist organisation there is no reason to take these kind of decisions. I think it is a dangerous precedent to set and we have to be very careful about going beyond what is direct evidence, particularly when the allegation concerns the children of the person involved."