A civil servant who has condemned ministers for helping to fuel the “slaughter” of Arabs in the Middle East is advising Britain’s most senior prosecutor on Islamic extremism.
Azad Ali, a Treasury official who has used his internet blog to praise the spiritual leader of Al-Qaeda, sits on a Whitehall counterterrorism panel that provides advice to Keir Starmer, the director of public prosecutions (DPP).
Ali was investigated earlier this year over his controversial views on the Iraq war and was forced to deny that he sympathised with the killing of British troops. He got into trouble with his Treasury bosses after using his blog to deny that last November’s Mumbai attacks, which claimed 173 lives, were an act of terrorism.
This is no more than a rerun of the witch-hunt of Azad Ali that took place earlier this year, and features the same blatant misrepresentations of Azad’s views. The Sunday Times also fails to make it clear that, although this lying campaign led to Azad’s suspension from his civil service job, an inquiry cleared and reinstated him.