LONDON – Four British riot squad officers have been charged with beating up a man, now awaiting extradition to the United States on terrorism charges, when they arrested him.
Babar Ahmad (36), a computer expert, was detained in a dawn raid on his home in Tooting, southwest London, in December 2003.
“Mr Ahmad suffered a number of injuries during that arrest, including heavy bruising to the head, neck, wrists and feet,” said Simon Clements, head of the Crown Prosecution Service’s special crime division.
“Our conclusion is that there is sufficient evidence and it is in the public interest to charge four of the officers involved in the arrest of Mr Ahmad with causing actual bodily harm to him.”
Before the raid, police had been told that Mr Ahmad, a Muslim, was believed to be connected to al- Qaeda, was the head of a south London terrorist group and was potentially very dangerous. However, he was released after questioning by counter-terrorism detectives.
The CPS initially rejected charging any officers involved, but last year, Mr Ahmad won £60,000 ($94,000) in damages at the High Court from London’s Metropolitan Police over the incident.
Mr Clements said the CPS had reviewed the case after that ruling and decided it could now take action against PCs Nigel Cowley, John Donohue, Roderick James-Bowen and Mark Jones from the Met’s Territorial Support Group.
They will appear at the City of Westminster Magistrates’ Court on September 22nd.
“I am pleased that the CPS has decided that a jury will hear the evidence in this case and it will now be for the jury to determine whether any police officer should be punished for the assault upon me in December 2003,” Mr Ahmad said in a statement.
Although he has never been charged in Britain, Mr Ahmad was rearrested in August 2004 after US officials accused him of running a website that raised funds for Islamist militants in Afghanistan and Chechnya.
He has spent six years in custody and is still awaiting a ruling on whether his extradition would contravene the European Convention on Human Rights.
The decision to charge the police officers comes weeks after the CPS was criticised by politicians and the media for not charging a riot officer over the death of a man in violent protests during last year’s G20 meeting.