Dizaei set free and tagged after 2 weeks
DISGRACED police chief Ali Dizaei smirks after being released from prison yesterday just two weeks after receiving a threeyear sentence for corruption.
The 49-year- old Scotland Yard commander was sent back to jail on February 13 after being found guilty for a second time of framing an innocent man.
But because he had already spent 15 months behind bars before winning a retrial, the £100,000-a-year officer was eligible to be released on an electronic tag.
Hours after being freed he and his third wife, Shy, could not contain their delight as they walked outside their home in Acton, West London.
Iranian-born Dizaei – who while in the police repeatedly played the race card to intimidate critics – vowed to clear his name, saying: ‘This is not the end of this case by a long way, as you will soon discover.’
The officer, dubbed a ‘criminal in uniform’ by Nick Hardwick, former head of watchdog the Independent Police Complaints Commission, added: ‘I believe I am the victim of a sophisticated witch-hunt over many years.’
Dizaei was originally convicted of perverting the course of justice and misconduct in public office in February 2010 and jailed for four years. His conviction was quashed last May after doubts emerged about the immigration status of his Iraqi accuser, Waad al-baghdadi, who was also exposed as a benefit fraudster. But a second jury unanimously found him guilty of the same offences earlier this month, condemning him to a further spell behind bars.
He was released from Wandsworth Prison in south-west London yesterday on a Home Detention Curfew, three months before the mid-point of his sentence, and will have to check in with his probation officer.
Prior to being jailed for a second time, Dizaei was on full pay. After winning a retrial but still to clear his name, he was reinstated, quickly suspended on full pay and then awarded up to £180,000 in back pay and allowances as he awaited the new hearing.
His salary was stopped on the day he was convicted again and he is expected to be formally sacked by the Met once a misconduct hearing has taken place.
Dizaei emerged unscathed from a series of inquiries over the years, including an undercover operation examining claims of corruption, fraud, dishonesty and appalling threats to an ex-girlfriend.
But the attempt to frame Mr alBaghdadi, who pestered him for payment over a website he was designing for Dizaei, exposed him as a violent bully and liar.