Anti-Semitism charges dropped against two UK Muslims

LONDON: The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) has dropped charges against two of the four British Muslim men from Blackburn who were charged with anti-Semitism.

Iftikhar Hanif, 28, Jawaad Hussain, 25, Asif Ali, 26, and Adil Mota, 27, were charged with raising anti-Semitic abuse from a convoy of cars in North London May 16 last year when they travelled all the way from Blackburn to London as part of a pro-Palestine rally called “Convoy for Palestine.”

At the Wood Green Crown Court in Courtroom 6, the CPS told the court it had decided to drop the charges and the case against Adil Mota and Asif Ali, accepting the prosecution doesn’t have a realistic prospect of a conviction in the case of the two.

The CPS, however, is moving ahead in its case against Iftikhar Hanif and Jawaad Hussain. After the CPS sought permission of the judge to offer no evidence, the judge formally dismissed the case against Ali and Mota. The trial of the other two will go ahead, the CPS told the court. Both Adil Mota and Asif Ali are British born but their parents originate from India and Azad Kashmir’s Dadial area. The two were not required to attend the court. Their barristers appeared in the court via video link. Mota’s solicitor Ghafar Khan told this publication in a comment: “We are glad that the case against our client has been dismissed. We had advanced the innocence of Mr Mota from the outset, he has stressed he is not anti-Semitic and has nothing against Jewish people. There was a car protest in which he took part to protest the difficulties faced in Palestine for the Palestinian people. Mr Mota would like to thank the Counter Terrorism Division for finally making this decision, for what has been a really difficult and stressful time for the past 14 months.” When they were charged last year, all the four had entered not-guilty pleas, denying that they were involved in spreading racial hatred against the Jewish people.

The Crown Prosecutor had told the judge at the Westminster Magistrates’ Court that Hanif, Hussain, Ali and Mota were charged with raising anti-Semitic abuse from a convoy of cars in North London on May 16 when they travelled all the way from Blackburn to London as part of a pro-Palestine rally called “Convoy for Palestine.” The prosecution had said that the four men were involved in "issuing death threats and racial hatred towards the Jewish people" and for this purpose, they went to the Finchley area of London where a large Jewish community lives.