In response to the letter from Olivia Seccombe regarding Sadiq Khan MP and Babar Ahmad, I think it is important to point several key facts which readers should know.
The whole point of Sadiq’s campaign was that his constituents Mr Ahmad, and Syed Talha Ahsan, should be tried in a UK court so that any evidence against them could be heard in a fair and timely manner.
Instead Mr Ahmad and Mr Ahsan were imprisoned without charge for nearly a decade before extradition.
I have never seen Mr Khan’s support for his constituents to be anything other than him simply asking for a fair trial in the UK. Indeed Mr Khan was far from alone in making this request.
An E-Petition on the Government’s website attracted nearly 150,000 signatures from concerned members of the public, celebrities and prominent community leaders, even sparking one Conservative MP to say in Parliament that in Mr Ahmad’s case that “the period of pre-trial detention is unacceptably high”.
Olivia Seccombe also claims that Mr Ahmad “has been found guilty”.
In fact Mr Ahmad has pleaded guilty and it is worth knowing that over 95 per cent of defendants in the USA plead guilty under pressure from prosecutors. Any conclusions should be drawn with this in mind.
Chris McQuigan, Earlsfield
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