Four Muslim Men Were Jailed for Terrorism. Did Police Plant Key Evidence?

Dozens of rights groups have called for a review of the case of four Muslim men jailed ten years ago for plotting a terror attack – arguing their conviction resembles “previous miscarriages of justice in Britain”. 

The 41 groups – including CAGE, Appeal, Defend our Juries, Filton25 and Stop the War Coalition Birmingham – issued a statement on 12 August urging the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) to reopen the case.

Naweed Ali, Khobaib Hussain, Mohibur Rahman and Tahir Aziz – known as the “Birmingham Four” – received life sentences in 2017 for plotting a terror attack on a police or military target. They maintain they are innocent. 

Campaigners and defence lawyers allege that police planted key evidence in Ali’s vehicle – including a half-built pipe bomb, an airgun, an unfired 9mm bullet and a meat cleaver with the word “kafir” on it.  

The convictions relied on an undercover operation in which the West Midlands Counter Terrorism Unit and MI5 created a fake company called Hero Couriers and hired Ali to work there. 

On his first day on the job, Ali gave his car keys to his manager, Vincent, who turned out to be an undercover officer using an alias and was later accused of planting the evidence. 

During the trial, undercover officers claimed they had never been in contact with one another, yet it later emerged they had exchanged around 1,000 messages. Before giving evidence, Vincent texted his boss to say: “I’m even more determined to put in an Oscar performance when I get in that box.” 

There were also concerns about some members of the jury. One juror told the judge she had left a train because she saw a man reading the Qur’an and was scared he was a terrorist. Another made it clear that she was attracted to a police officer she had seen in court.   

In 2018 a judge upheld the conviction of the four men on appeal. 

Two of the convicted men, Ali and Hussain, were previously sentenced to 40 months in prison after pleading guilty to travelling to Pakistan with the intention of undergoing military training in 2012. 

They abandoned their plans in Pakistan within two days, after panicking and realising they “had got themselves in such a mess,” Hussain’s sister Mariam told the Guardian last year. The two men claimed they wanted to help overthrow the regime of Syrian president Bashar al-Assad.