A man once convicted of plotting a terrorist attack on a British consulate is now campaigning for public office in the U.K.’s second-largest city.
Shahid Butt, who served time in prison for his involvement in a 1999 bombing plot targeting the British consulate in Yemen, is running for a seat on the Birmingham City Council. Butt is campaigning on a pro-Gaza platform in a ward where white residents make up just8 percentof the population.
Butt was among eight Britons and two Algerians convicted of plotting the consulate attack, as well as plans to bomb an Anglican church and a Swiss-owned hotel in Yemen, according to theBBC. Prosecutors said these plots were part of a broader militant campaign aimed at driving Western influence out of Yemen and establishing an Islamic state.
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Butt maintains that the case against him was fabricated and claims he signed a confession under torture. However, at the time, the judge dismissed these claims, according to the BBC.
“As far as the law is concerned, the law doesn’t bar me in the UK from standing as a councillor,” Butt told the BBC. “I’m not everybody’s cup of tea, not everybody’s going to agree with what I have to say or who I am or whatever. That’s fine.”
In November, Butt encouraged Birmingham Muslims to protest against a football match between Aston Villa and the Israeli club Maccabi Tel Aviv.
“Muslims are not pacifists… if somebody comes into your face, you knock his teeth out,” social mediafootagefrom the protest showed Butt saying. He later dismissed the video as taken out of context.
In a surprising twist, Butt has embraced a tougher stance on immigration, aligning himself with some policies backed by Reform UK leader Nigel Farage.
“As crazy as it sounds, there’s a lot of policies of the Reform Party that I actually agree with. Now you’ve got every Tom, Dick and Harry coming over here and just jumping the queues and getting benefits,” Butt said, according to theDaily Mail.
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