A member of the British upper house of parliament, the House of Lords, has been suspended after the London newspaper 'The Times' reported that claimed that he had been handed a harsh jail sentence because of pressure on the courts from Jews “who own newspapers and TV channels". Lord Ahmed, who in 1998 was appointed by then Prime Minister Tony Blair as the first Muslim member of the House of Lords, is said to have claimed that the conspiracy was a result of his support for the Palestinians in Gaza. He is said to have made the comments in a Pakistani TV interview in April last year. Ahmed was born in Pakistan.
The British Labor Party on Thursday suspended Ahmed "pending an investigation".
In the TV broadcast it is alleged Ahmed said: “My case became more critical because I went to Gaza to support Palestinians. My Jewish friends who own newspapers and TV channels opposed this.” A criminal law expert told 'The Times' that if Lord Ahmed had made the claims in the UK, he might have faced prosecution for a hate crime. A spokesman for the Labor Party said they will be “seeking to clarify” the remarks. "The Labor Party deplores and does not tolerate any sort of racism or anti-Semitism...we are suspending Lord Ahmed pending an investigation."
Last year, the lawmaker was suspended by the party amid reports that he offered a GBP 10 million bounty for the capture of President Barack Obama and his predecessor George W. Bush. The peer denied having made the comments, published in a Pakistani newspaper, and was reinstated after an investigation by Labor.
In 2007, Ahmed was highly critical of the awarding of a knighthood to Salman Rushdie, claiming the author had "blood on his hands." In 2009 he was jailed for dangerous driving after sending and receiving text messages minutes before being involved in a fatal motorway crash. An appeals court later suspended his 3-month jail sentence. He was freed after serving 16 days in jail after Martyn Gombar, a 28-year-old Slovakian was killed on Christmas Day in 2007 after his stationary car was hit by Ahmed’s Jaguar.
