Murderer’s getaway driver sent back to jail
CREGAN ACCOMPLICE ALLEGEDLY FOUND WITH KNIFE AND PHONES
A CAREER criminal jailed for being police killer Dale Cregan’s getaway driver has been recalled to prison.
Mohammed Imran Ali, 47, from Oldham, claimed to be a devout Muslim and humanitarian after he was released part-way through his sentence.
The M.E.N. has now learned he is back behind bars. The convicted drug trafficker was allegedly found with two mobile phones. Ali is only allowed to have one according to the terms of his early release licence. He was also allegedly found with a knife.
Ali was jailed along with Cregan in 2013. He was released on licence half-way through his sentence in 2016. He was sent back to Strangeways prison on August 7 for breaching the terms of his early release. The Parole Board will now consider the breach. Ali was standing beside Cregan in the dock in 2013 when he was convicted of assisting an offender. He was jailed for seven years.
Known as Irish Immy, Ali admitted he had driven Cregan to a safe house in Leeds after Cregan carried out the savage gun-and-grenade murder of a gangland rival, David Short, having shot dead Short’s son Mark in a pub months earlier.
He claimed he had no idea Cregan had been involved in the murder of Short Snr on August 10, 2012, when he agreed to take him to Leeds.
The jury disagreed and convicted Ali of assisting an offender.
After slaughtering David Short, Cregan called Ali to transport him out of Manchester. Within minutes Ali turned up in a leased VW Golf. Ali had never taken a driving test. He ferried Cregan and two others to Leeds, enabling the murderer to evade a huge manhunt and later lure two police officers to their deaths. While on the run, Cregan killed Pcs Nicola Hughes, 23, and Fiona Bone, 32, in another gun-and-grenade attack before handing himself in.
During his trial, Ali admitted he had served jail sentences totalling 16 years, starting when he was given a three-month sentence for assault when he was just 15.
Other significant sentences followed for trafficking drugs including heroin and cocaine.
He was convicted of assault after hitting a 59-year-old man with a twofoot plank outside a pub in Werneth.
Ali claimed in court he had left behind the life of a drug dealer and was concentrating instead on selling steroids and designer goods which had ‘fallen off the back of a lorry.’
He also got involved in the security business, co-owning a firm which had 68 bouncers on its books. Ali came to the UK from Pakistan as a boy. He has never held down a legitimate job, although he has claimed job seeker’s allowance.
Ali claims to be a devout Muslim and humanitarian. Just weeks before he was recalled to prison, he appeared on Probash Bangla TV, a YouTube channel, where he promoted a planned 182-mile walk from Oldham to the Houses of Parliament to highlight the plight of the Palestinian people and a subsequent planned aid trip to Gaza.
He has also set up a petition calling for the safe distribution of aid from the UK to Gaza. In 2013, his trial heard Ali was covered in tattoos, including pictures of an AK47 rifle and grenades.
A Prison and Probation Service spokesman said: “Mohammed Imran Ali was recalled to prison on August 3 for breaching his licence conditions.”