A City high-flyer who worked on an innovative Islamic policy for a leading British insurer has brought a claim for racism against the company after he was welcomed to the office as “Guantanamo detainee 948”.
Anwar Khan, 24, who shares his name with a Afghan man held by the Americans at the Cuban naval base since 2002, says that he was greeted on 18 September by a colleague with the words: “So they have released you from Guantanamo Bay.” When Mr Khan logged on to his computer, he opened an email with a link to the Wikipedia page for detainee 948.
Mr Khan, from central London, has now begun grievance proceedings against the Royal & Sun Alliance (R&SA) insurance company after what he describes as one of the most distressing episodes in his life. The case is the latest to involve allegations of racism at work in which Asian men and women have complained that they have been racially victimised since Britain and America launched the “war on terror”.