The activist, Azad Ali, was accepted by the Met as a trusted interlocutor. The force also agreed to give him information on forthcoming anti-terror raids. – Mr Ali has previously justified the killing of British troops in Iraq, believes al Qaeda is a "myth," and has praised a key mentor of Osama bin Laden. Mr Ali signed the deal, a copy of which has been seen by the Daily Telegraph, in his capacity as the then chairman of the Muslim Safety Forum – a body closely linked to the fundamentalist Islamic Forum of Europe (IFE). In yesterday's Sunday Telegraph a Labour minister, Jim Fitzpatrick, accused the IFE of infiltrating the Labour Party and British politics along the lines of the far-Left Militant Tendency in the 1980s. The IFE believes in jihad, sharia law and the transformation of Britain into an Islamic state. It will be the subject of a Channel 4 Dispatches documentary tonight. The Muslim Safety Forum was set up, in its own words, to challenge the "unfair focus on the Muslim community when it came to policing activities and enforcement of anti- terror policing legislation." It was accepted by the police as a legitimate body. The agreement, dated December 2006 and personally signed by Mr Ali and Sir Ian, who was Commissioner of the Mat at the time, states: "The Commissioner will recognise the MSF as the principal body in relation to Muslim community safety and security." Sir Ian or his deputy committed to meet Mr Ali and the MSF at least twice a year and to hold monthly meetings with the MSF at "New Scotland Yard or other suitable premises." Met chiefs, including counter-terrorist commanders, also committed to attending the MSF's own meetings "whenever possible”. Both the current head of the antiterrorist command, Commander Shaun Sawyer, and his predecessor, Commander Bob Quick, who the MSF described as a "close partner”, have had regular meetings. The agreement says that the Met and MSF will "use the MSF as a consultation body to help formulate policy or practice." and "progress an annual plan of work through agreed priority workstreams," jointly led by Met and MSF representatives. The workstreams included counter-terrorism and "Islamophobia." Mr Ali was the MSF lead on counter-terrorism. In the wake of the controversy about the abortive terror arrests in Forest Gate in summer 2006, the Met also agreed to set up a four-strong panel with the MSF to offer the Muslim community a chance to comment on whether the information police had on a suspect was too flimsy and the consequences of a raid for community relations. Mr Ali, one of the panel members, said at the time: "This will allow independent scrutiny of intelligence." Mr Ali was also described by the Metropolitan Police Authority as a "key member" of the Met's ‘Communities Together Strategic Group’, chaired by Deputy Assistant Commissioner Rose Fitzpatrick, which met fortnightly to "oversee and review community reassurance and engagement measures." He was a member of the Kratos Review Group, to examine the Met's response to suicide bombings. However, Mr Ali, who is also a senior official of the IFE, has a strong track record of extremism. Last year, by which time he had become the MSF's treasurer, he was suspended from his job as a civil servant after praising Abdullah Azzam, Osama bin Laden's key mentor. Writing on his blog on the IFE website, he described Azzam as one of the "few Muslims who promote the understanding of the term jihad in its comprehensive glory" as both a doctrine of "self-purification" and of "warfare." He then quoted Azzam's son, approvingly, as saying: "If I saw an American or British man wearing a soldier's uniform inside Iraq, I would kill him because that is my obligation ... I respect this as the main instruction in my religion for jihad." In January Mr Ali lost a libel action against a newspaper which reported his comments. Ruling against him, the judge, Mr Justice Eady, said that Mr Ali "was indeed ... taking the position that the killing of American and British troops in Iraq would be justified." Following the controversy over his remarks Mr Ali left the post of MSF treasurer, but he remained a trustee and director of the group. The group also preserves its close links with the IFE, whose headquarters it shares and several of whose trustees and activists also sit on the MSF. A Met spokesman said the 2006 agreement between Sir Ian and Mr Ali, which was subject to annual renewal, was not renewed after it expired in December 2007, although links between the Met and the MSF continued. The spokesman said: “We are currently working with the Muslim Safety Forum to review how it can best represent London’s diverse Muslim Communities so that we can better understand and then act on their concerns about safety and security.” Last night Mr Ali declined to comment.Sir Ian Blair's deal with Islamic radical
Sir Ian Blair signed a formal agreement with an Islamic extremist to treat him as the Metropolitan Police’s "principal" representative of the Muslim community, it can be disclosed.
Monday, 1 March 2010
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