LABOUR PEER SUSPENDED OVER ‘BOUNTY’ ON OBAMA
A LABOUR peer was suspended last night after allegedly claiming he would put up a £10million bounty for the capture of Barack Obama.
Lord Ahmed of Rotherham is reported to have made the gesture after the U.S. announced a $10million bounty for Hafiz Muhammed Saeed, whom it blames for orchestrating the 008 Mumbai terror attacks.
He is said to have described the bounty on Mr Saeed, who founded banned militant group Lashkar-e-taiba (LET), as an ‘insult to all Muslims’.
Pakistani-born Lord Ahmed, Britain’s first Muslim peer, reportedly said Mr Obama had ‘challenged the dignity of the Muslim Ummah (community)’ and said his reward also applied to Mr Obama’s predecessor as U.S. president, George W Bush.
Pakistan’s Express Tribune newspaper said Lord Ahmed had made the remarks at a reception in Haripur on Friday.
A Labour spokesman said: ‘We have suspended Lord Ahmed pending investigation. If these comments are accurate we utterly condemn these remarks which are totally unacceptable.
‘The international community is rightly doing all in its power to seek justice for the victims of the Mumbai bombings and halt terrorism.’
Lord Ahmed denied offering a bounty but said he told the meeting that Mr Bush and ex-labour prime minister Tony Blair should be prosecuted for war crimes.
Speaking from Pakistan, he said no one from Labour had contacted him before announcing the suspension.
He added: ‘They have suspended me? That’s a surprise to me. I did not know.’ Asked about the reported comments, he said: ‘I never said those words. I did not offer a bounty.
‘I said that there have been war crimes committed in Iraq and Afghanistan and those people who have got strong allegations against them – George W Bush and Tony Blair – have been involved in illegal wars and should be brought to justice.
‘I do not think there’s anything wrong with that. If the Labour Party want to suspend me I will deal with the Labour Party. They will have to give me some evidence.’
Patrick Mercer, Tory MP for Newark and former chairman of the Commons counterterrorism sub-committee, said: ‘ This seems an extraordinary statement.
‘There is a major distinction between the President of a great democracy and a man who, although only a suspect, is wanted in connection to a terrible atrocity.’