LONDON - Britain’s Labour Party suspended Pakistan-born Muslim peer Nazir Ahmed on Thursday over reports that he blamed a Jewish conspiracy for his imprisonment over a fatal car crash, a spokesman said.
The Times newspaper said Ahmed, who was jailed for dangerous driving after sending text messages shortly before the accident, had attributed his prison sentence on pressure placed on British courts by Jews “who own newspapers and TV channels”.
He allegedly told a Pakistani television station that the judge who jailed him for 12 weeks was appointed after helping a “Jewish colleague” of former prime minister Tony Blair during a case, according to a translations of his Urdu language comments obtained by the newspaper. “The Labour Party deplores and does not tolerate any sort of anti-Semitism. Following reports in The Times today we are suspending Lord Ahmed pending an investigation,” a party spokesman said.
Lord Ahmed was appointed Britain’s first Muslim peer in 1998. His car hit a stationary vehicle on a motorway in northern England on Christmas Day in 2007, killing the 28-year-old Slovakian driver. Ahmed pleaded guilty to dangerous driving and a judge sentenced him to 12 weeks in jail in February 2009 after hearing that he sent five text messages in the minutes before the crash. The party suspended Ahmed in April 2012 over reports that he offered a £10 million ($15.9 million, 12.1 million euro) bounty for the capture of US President Barack Obama and former president George W Bush. He denied the comments and was later reinstated.
