For most of America, there’s only one election in 2016 that matters. But another one taking place over in the U.K. also bears watching. In May, London will elect its new mayor. And the story behind the frontrunner, Sadiq Khan, makes it worth briefly shifting attention from South Carolina to South Clapham.
Sadiq Khan is a Labour MP for the ethnically diverse ward of Tooting, south London, near to where Khan grew up and where he served as a local councilor. He is regarded as a moderate. He has denounced terrorism and taken socially liberal positions, voting for gay marriage in 2013, for example. He is also running in a heavily pro-Labour city; that there has been a Tory mayor for the last eight years is largely testament to the seemingly limitless likeability of the foppish Boris Johnson. Yet Johnson is stepping down and a recent poll put Khan 10 points ahead of his Conservative rival, Zac Goldsmith. It is all set up for him.
In recent days, however, Khan has received some negative press coverage about potential links to extremism. There was a Daily Mail story about him giving a speech at an event organized by the Islam Channel, which has been castigated by the U.K.’s communications regulator for defending marital rape and dubbing women who wear perfume “prostitutes.” And The Times revealed Khan has regularly shared platforms with Suliman Gani, a cleric who has called for the creation of a Caliphate and defended Aafia Siddiqui, wife of a key al-Qaeda facilitator behind the 9/11 attacks. Siddiqui herself is serving an 86 year sentence in Fort Worth for attempting to murder American officials in Afghanistan and assaulting those who tried to stop her.
However, there is a bigger story from Khan’s past that may be even more damaging to his electoral chances. It concerns his friendship with another Tooting local – a man called Babar Ahmad.
Khan has known Ahmad for around a quarter of a century. This is problematic, because Babar Ahmad – a veteran fighter from the Bosnian jihad – was a key radicalizer in 1990s London. For example, Saajid Badat, recruited by al Qaeda to detonate a shoe bomb in December 2001, admitted in court that he was set on the path to radicalism by Ahmad. He was also the brains behind Azzam Publications, a hugely influential online umbrella organization created in 1996 for the first English language jihadist websites. He has since been dubbed the “Godfather of Internet Jihad.”
In 2004, the U.S. government brought charges. Ahmad may have been based in south London, but he had hosted Azzam Publications for almost two years on U.S. servers. That put him in U.S. jurisdiction. Ahmad then spent almost a decade fighting extradition to America. Khan visited Ahmad in prison on multiple occasions during this fight.
Khan obviously cannot be blamed for the actions of his friends. Yet what he can be blamed for is his subsequent campaigning on Ahmad’s behalf and attempts to undermine the legal process which saw his eventual extradition – and conviction – take place.
Before his trial was ever underway, Khan astonishingly took to the House of Commons in July 2006 to unequivocally declare Ahmad “innocent” (this from a man who would eventually serve as Shadow Justice Secretary). That same year he posted an article on his website outlining how he was “very concerned” about Ahmad’s possible extradition to the U.K.’s closest ally.
At times, Khan tried to wrap this up in concern over the U.S.-U.K. extradition treaty (which he incorrectly argued was unbalanced in America’s favor). He delivered speeches in public alongside those groups campaigning for the extradition not to take place. At other times, he said that if Ahmad had done anything wrong, he should be tried in the U.K.. Yet as a lawyer, he surely knew that the U.K. did not possess the laws needed to prosecute Ahmad for the offenses of which he was accused in the United States (which possesses broader “material support for terrorism” legislation). The U.K. had no intention of prosecuting Ahmad, presumably for this reason. Khan, then, was lobbying to simply have Ahmad released knowing he would never face justice.
He did not get his way and finally, after a long legal process overseen by both British and European judges, the extradition was approved in 2012. Still, Khan did not relent. He took to the pages of the Huffington Post to outrageously (and mystifyingly) claim that due process had been “jettisoned.” He also expressed his “fear” that Ahmad would plead guilty.
On this, he was spot on. Ahmad did indeed agree to a plea deal in which he admitted one count of conspiracy to provide material support to terrorists and one count of providing material support to terrorists. This related to his operation of Azzam Publications which, according to the Department of Justice, “solicit[ed] and conspir[ed] to provide funds, personnel and physical items for the Taliban regime in Afghanistan.” Regardless of their previous friendship, why Ahmad pleading guilty to offences he undoubtedly committed was a source of “fear” for Khan is anyone’s guess.
Ahmad is now back in the U.K., where he has kept a low profile since his release. Khan has not addressed the issue further. As Londoners go to the polls this May, they should remember the episode. This is a city that has suffered on multiple occasions because of jihadist ideology. It should not have a mayor who so vociferously backed one of the men responsible for its growth.
Robin Simcox is the Heritage Foundation’s Margaret Thatcher Fellow.
