Babar Ahmad; born London, England, May 1974) is a British Muslim of Pakistani descent who spent eight years in prison without trial in the United Kingdom from 2004 to 2012 fighting extradition to the United States. The US accused him of providing material support to terrorism via a website that he set up in the UK in 1996 to publish stories about the conflicts in Bosnia and Chechnya, but which in 2000–2001 allowed two articles to be posted offering support to the then Taliban government in Afghanistan. The US accepted that the website was operated from the UK but claimed jurisdiction because one of the servers hosting the website was located in the US. He fought a public eight-year legal battle, from prison, to be tried in Britain but the British Crown Prosecution Service concluded that there was "insufficient evidence to prosecute" him.
In 2009, the High Court in London awarded Ahmad £60,000 compensation after the London Metropolitan Police admitted that its officers had subjected him to "serious gratuitous prolonged unjustified violence" and "religious abuse" during his arrest which led to 73 injuries. It was revealed that the officers, who abused Ahmad were also accused of dozens of other assaults on black and Asian men but the four officers were acquitted by a jury in June 2011. In October 2015, a London High Court of Justice judge ruled that PC Mark Jones, one of the officers acquitted in the Ahmad case, assaulted and racially abused two Arab teenage boys in another case.
In 2011, celebrities and senior British lawyers backed a public campaign which led to 140,000 British citizens signing a UK Government e-petition calling for him to be tried in the UK. His case was subsequently debated twice in the British Parliament. Ahmad was finally extradited to the US in October 2012, having become the longest-serving British prisoner to be detained without trial in the UK. He spent the next two years of pre-trial detention in solitary confinement in Northern Correctional Institution, a Supermax prison in the US State of Connecticut. In December 2013, after his first year in solitary confinement and after being in prison for over nine years without trial, Ahmad pleaded guilty to two of the charges against him as part of a plea bargain that would allow him to return home within the year. He pleaded guilty to "conspiracy and providing material support to terrorism."
In July 2014, US federal Judge Janet Hall sentenced Ahmad to an unexpectedly lenient sentence of 12-and-a-half years in prison, meaning that with credit for time served he only had another 12 months to serve. Judge Hall concluded that Ahmad was never interested in terrorism, stating, "There was never any aid given by these defendants to effectuate a plot. By plot, I mean a terrorist plot ... Neither of these two defendants were interested in what is commonly known as terrorism ..." Hall stated that Ahmad "never supported or believed in or associated with Al-Qaida or Osama bin Laden." Ahmad was released in July 2015 and returned to the UK.
Early life and education Babar Ahmad was born and brought up in Tooting, London. His parents emigrated to Britain from Pakistan in 1963. His father worked as a Foreign Office civil servant for 30 years and his mother worked as a science teacher.
Ahmad was educated at Emanuel School, where he won academic prizes and obtained outstanding results in his GCSE and A-Level exams. He then attended university obtaining a master's degree in Engineering from the University of London in 1996.
Before imprisonment Ahmad fought on and off in the Bosnian War from 1992 until 1995. Before his imprisonment in August 2004, Ahmad was working in the IT department at Imperial College, University of London. In December 2003 Babar was arrested at his home in Tooting, South London. In March 2009, the London Metropolitan Police agreed to pay Ahmad £60,000 in damages after admitting he was subjected to "violent assault and religious abuse" during the arrest raid.
US prosecution of Ahmad and extradition battle
Babar Ahmad was re-arrested in London on 5 August 2004 on charges of providing material support to terrorism. An affidavit filed with the US court detailed that Ahmad established Azzam.com, a website established in 1996 that later solicited support for Chechen insurgents and the Taliban regime in 2000/01. It further stated that items recovered from a house used by Ahmad included a floppy disk containing a detailed description of the movements of the US Fifth Fleet battlegroup. Ahmad was later indicted by a grand jury of US citizens in October 2004. Another man, Syed Talha Ahsan, was indicted in 2006 of involvement with Ahmad and with the battlegroup information in the document. In 2008, a US former navy seaman, Abu Jihad, was indicted and convicted of disclosing the classified information on the battlegroup but he was cleared of terrorism charges. However, when sentencing Ahmad on 16 July 2014, federal district Judge Janet Hall ruled that "nothing was done with the information" found in Ahmad's possession so, "the battle group document, besides showing that the Navy enlisted man was a traitor to his country, it also shows that Mr. Ahmad and Mr. Ahsan had absolutely no interest in operational terrorist actions that would harm the United States."
US extradition documents stated that "at all times material to the indictment" Babar Ahmad was resident in London. The Crown Prosecution Service declared in July 2004 and December 2006, as did the UK Attorney General Lord Goldsmith in September 2006, that there was "insufficient evidence" to charge Ahmad with any criminal offence under UK law.
Having been refused bail, Ahmad was detained in prison until his extradition on 5 October 2012. On 17 May 2005, Senior District Judge Timothy Workman approved his extradition at Bow Street Magistrates' Court, stating: "This is a troubling and difficult case. The defendant is a British citizen who is alleged to have committed offences which, if the evidence were available, could have been prosecuted in this country".
In September 2005, Sadiq Khan, Member of Parliament for Tooting, presented a petition of 18,000 signatures to the Home Secretary Charles Clarke asking for Babar Ahmad to be tried in the UK, instead of being extradited.
On 16 November 2005, Clarke approved his extradition to the United States.
On 28 November 2005, the UK Parliamentary Home Affairs Select Committee raised serious concerns about the one-sided UK-US extradition arrangements and, in particular, the case of Babar Ahmad.
In a House of Commons emergency debate on 12 July 2006 about UK-US extradition, MPs from all parties raised concerns at the case of Babar Ahmad. His name has also been mentioned repeatedly in both the House of Commons and the House of Lords in relation to UK-US extradition.
On 30 November 2006, Ahmad lost his appeal at the High Court. On 4 June 2007, the House of Lords refused to grant him leave to appeal to them.
On 10 June 2007, the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg (France) ordered the UK Government to freeze Babar Ahmad's extradition until they had fully determined his final appeal.
In 2009, the High Court in London awarded Ahmad £60,000 compensation after the London Metropolitan Police admitted that its officers had subjected him to "serious gratuitous prolonged unjustified violence" and "religious abuse" during his arrest which led to 73 injuries. It was revealed that the officers, who abused Ahmad were also accused of dozens of other assaults on black and Asian men. The revelation lead the Mayor of London Boris Johnson to order an independent review of the case. In 2010, the review led the Crown Prosecution Service to announce that four serving police officers would face criminal charges for assaulting Ahmad. The four officers were acquitted by a jury in June 2011. In October 2015, a London High Court of Justice judge ruled that PC Mark Jones, one of the officers acquitted in the Ahmad case, assaulted and racially abused two Arab teenage boys in another case. On 8 July 2010, the European Court of Human Rights of the Council of Europe, at Strasbourg, imposed a temporary stay on the extradition of Ahmad et al. to the United States to face terrorism charges, until the Court was satisfied that he would not be liable or subject inhumane treatment. The Court based its judgement on the European Convention on Human Rights, which is incorporated as the Human Rights Act 1998 in English and British law. In past cases, the ECtHR had ruled to prevent the United Kingdom and the British Government from deporting, extraditing or repatriating terrorism suspects to other countries, where they would be subject or liable to, or where there was a likelihood that they would be subject or liable to, torture, or to degrading or inhumane treatment.
In Babar Ahmad and Others v the United Kingdom the legal representatives of the litigants, argued that extradition to a country, where they might be imprisoned for life, with no possibility of release on parole, and where the penal regime is in comparison excessively harsh, amounted also to degrading or inhumane treatment, and that the extradition therefore ought to be refused.
On 22 June 2011, the Houses of Parliament Joint Committee on Human Rights urged the UK government to change the law so that Ahmad's perpetual threat of extradition is ended without further delay.
In November 2011, celebrities and senior British lawyers backed a public campaign which led to 140,000 British citizens signing a UK Government e-petition calling for him to be tried in the UK. His case was subsequently debated twice in the British Parliament.
On 10 April 2012, the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg (France) ruled that Ahmad could be extradited to the United States.
On 24 April 2012, the BBC reported the testimony of a British man convicted of plotting to blow up an aircraft, from the trial of Adis Medunjanin in New York City. Saajid Badat alleged that he was radicalised by Babar Ahmad but when sentencing Ahmad in July 2012, Judge Hall ruled, "As to whether he [Mr Ahmad] radicalized anyone, I don't understand that. I think that the only person radicalized in this case is the cooperating witness. It's pretty clear to me that Mr. Ahmad is not responsible for radicalizing him. He may have played a role in getting the cooperating witness to go to Afghanistan to get training, but even the cooperating witness acknowledges that, unlike what Mr. Ahmad wanted him to do, which was to return to England to complete his education, he turned away from that and was, in fact, radicalized by Khaled Sheikh Mohammed and Osama bin Laden whom he met in Afghanistan."
Ahmad was extradited from the UK to the United States on 5 October 2012. The removal process took place on the evening, when Babar Ahmad and Talha Ahsan were taken from HM Prison Long Lartin, to RAF Mildenhall in Suffolk, which is used by the US Air Force, from where he was placed into the physical custody of the awaiting United States officials. Three other terror suspects in unrelated cases were also extradited at the same time. Ahmad later stated that he was "blindfolded, shackled and forcibly stripped naked" during his extradition. He landed in Connecticut on the morning of 6 October.
After spending two years in solitary confinement at a US Supermax prison he pleaded guilty to "conspiracy and providing material to support to terrorism".