Yesterday’s debate about the Muslim policeman who was reported not to have been keen on guarding the Israeli Embassy took place amongst conflicting claims as to his true motives and a general lack of background to the facts of the affair.
This Telegraph article provides some facts about PC Omar Basha:
A Muslim police officer who asked to be excused from guarding the Israeli embassy was married by the radical cleric Omar Bakri Mohammed
The cleric, who founded the now disbanded Al-Muhajiroun group of radical Muslims, is living in Lebanon after being barred from the UK.
Bakri caused consternation when he said he would never warn the police if he learned of an impending suicide bomber attack by fellow Muslims. He also called the July 7 London suicide bombers “the fantastic four”.
The article goes on to state that PC Basha and his new bride’s former presiding minister clearly didn’t approve of Basha’s job:
Bakri said he had told PC Omar-Basha to leave the police. Speaking from the Lebanon, Bakri said: “After a while I learned he was in the police force because brothers were arrested in Wood Green for distributing leaflets outside the library which, they said, offended homosexuals.
When PC Basha explained these contacts to his employers the Metropolitan Police decided to deploy him elsewhere:
Whilst the Israeli Embassy is not his normal posting, in view of the possibility that he could be deployed there, a risk assessment was undertaken, which is normal practice. It was as a result of this risk assessment – and not because of the officer’s personal views, whatever they might have been – that the decision was taken temporarily not to deploy him to the Embassy.
Thanks to Pommygranate.
wardytron adds:
According to the Times, Metropolitan Police Deputy Commissioner Paul Stephenson said that the issue wasn’t PC Basha’s views, but that he’d told his managers that he was worried for relatives trapped in Lebanon were he to be photographed at the embassy.
“It was as a result of this risk assessment, and not because of the officer’s personal views, that the decision was taken temporarily not to deploy him to the embassy.”
Brett adds:
I don’t hold PC Basha responsible at all. Based on what I’ve read, it seems he is the victim. He deemed the lives of his family (in Lebanon) to be under threat by Islamic extremists and he took steps to protect them from the consequences of some lunatic using his job as an excuse to murder his family. Perfectly sensible.
