A British court jailed the country’s most senior Asian police officer for four years on Monday for attacking a man and trying to frame him in a petty row over money.
Ali Dizaei, 47, was convicted of misconduct in public office and perverting the course of justice following a four-week trial in London and given a sentence that the judge said was intended as a deterrent for others.
The officer will now be sacked for gross misconduct and faces losing all or part of his pension under measures to punish corrupt officers. Investigators who led the probe against Dizaei branded him a “criminal in uniform” and said he had behaved like a bully.
The jury heard how Iranian-born Dizaei had met his victim, 24-year-old Iraqi businessman Waad al-Baghdadi, in a west London restaurant run by a friend of the police officer in July 2008.
The Iraqi approached Dizaei, who held the rank of commander and rose to become head of the National Black Police Association, and asked him for £600 (US$940) he was owed for building a Web site for him.
The policeman grew angry and confronted Baghdadi in a nearby side street where a scuffle took place and the Iraqi was roughly arrested and handcuffed. Dizaei called for back-up and when the officers arrived, he handed them the metal mouthpiece of a shisha pipe that was held on Baghdadi’s keyring and claimed that he had been stabbed with it.
However, a doctor later concluded that two red marks on Dizaei’s torso did not match the pipe and were probably self-inflicted. When Baghdadi was told he would not be charged, he complained about his treatment and suspicions were raised, marking the beginning of the end of Dizaei’s 24-year career with London’s Metropolitan Police.
“Dizaei behaved like a bully and the only way to deal with bullies is to stand up to them,” said Nick Hardwick, head of the Independent Police Complaints Commission.
“The greatest threat to the reputation of the police service is criminals in uniform like Dizaei,” he said.
Sentencing him at London’s Southwark Crown Court, the judge told Dizaei that his jail term included a deterrent element “to send a clear message that police officers of whatever rank are not above the law.”
“You knew how the system worked and you thought you would never be discovered. It is to the credit of the investigators in this case that early on they questioned your account,” he told the police officer.
Dizaei also made headlines in 2008 when he represented Tarique Ghaffur, then Britain’s top Muslim police officer, in threatening legal action against then Met chief Sir Ian Blair for discrimination and bullying.
Met chief Paul Stephenson said on Monday that Dizaei’s “disgraceful behavior” damaged the reputation of the entire police force.
“It is extremely disappointing and concerning that this very senior officer has been found guilty of abusing his position and power,” he said.
When Shanghai-based designer Guo Qingshan posted a vacation photo on Valentine’s Day and captioned it “Puppy Mountain,” it became a sensation in China and even created a tourist destination. Guo had gone on a hike while visiting his hometown of Yichang in central China’s Hubei Province late last month. When reviewing the photographs, he saw something he had not noticed before: A mountain shaped like a dog’s head rested on the ground next to the Yangtze River, its snout perched at the water’s edge. “It was so magical and cute. I was so excited and happy when I discovered it,” Guo said.
TURNAROUND: The Liberal Party had trailed the Conservatives by a wide margin, but that was before Trump threatened to make Canada the US’ 51st state Canada’s ruling Liberals, who a few weeks ago looked certain to lose an election this year, are mounting a major comeback amid the threat of US tariffs and are tied with their rival Conservatives, according to three new polls. An Ipsos survey released late on Tuesday showed that the left-leaning Liberals have 38 percent public support and the official opposition center-right Conservatives have 36 percent. The Liberals have overturned a 26-point deficit in six weeks, and run advertisements comparing the Conservative leader to Trump. The Conservative strategy had long been to attack unpopular Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, but last month he
Chinese authorities said they began live-fire exercises in the Gulf of Tonkin on Monday, only days after Vietnam announced a new line marking what it considers its territory in the body of water between the nations. The Chinese Maritime Safety Administration said the exercises would be focused on the Beibu Gulf area, closer to the Chinese side of the Gulf of Tonkin, and would run until tomorrow evening. It gave no further details, but the drills follow an announcement last week by Vietnam establishing a baseline used to calculate the width of its territorial waters in the Gulf of Tonkin. State-run Vietnam News
THIRD ANNIVERSARY OF WAR: Ursula von der Leyen said that Europe was in Kyiv because ‘it is not only the destiny of Ukraine that is at stake. It’s Europe’s destiny’ A dozen leaders from Europe and Canada yesterday visited Ukraine’s capital to mark the third anniversary of Russia’s invasion in a show of support for Kyiv by some of its most important backers. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau were among the visitors greeted at the railway station by Ukrainian Minister of Foreign Affairs Andrii Sybiha and the president’s chief of staff Andrii Yermak. Von der Leyen wrote on social media that Europe was in Kyiv “because Ukraine is in Europe.” “In this fight for survival, it is not only the destiny of Ukraine that is