A Labour MP appeared at an event alongside the disgraced peer Lord Ahmed, who was previously jailed for sex crimes against children.
Afzal Khan, the MP for Manchester Rusholme, took part in a grand entrance with Ahmed at a function last year to promote luxury homes in Dubai. The peer, who was convicted of the attempted rape of a girl aged four to five and the rape of boy aged nine or ten, was jailed in 2022. He denied the charges.
Khan claimed he only “briefly” attended the gathering in Stockport, near his constituency. He claimed: “When I realised Baron Ahmed was present, I left shortly afterwards.” Last week he added: “I want to be clear that I do not have a relationship with Mr Ahmed and the crimes he has been convicted of are truly sickening.”
But video evidence suggests this is not true.
In fact, Khan and Ahmed together led a ceremonial entrance to the event, held at Royal Nawaab Pyramid in June. They stood at the front of the procession, alternately smiling and speaking, as they headed a line of “distinguished” guests into the ballroom. They appeared relaxed while striding down a red carpet.
The pair sat side by side at a table where they were repeatedly photographed and filmed as speakers delivered speeches.
Lord Ahmed, left, enters with Afzal Khan at the event at Royal Nawaab Pyramid, StockportBT PROPERTIES
The pair then sat next to each otherBT PROPERTIES
The association with Ahmed poses questions of Khan. His judgment has already come under scrutiny after The Sunday Times revealed that the owners of the property scheme being promoted at the event were banned from the UK due to their involvement in corruption overseas.
Malik Riaz Hussain and Ali Riaz Malik, a father-son duo based in Dubai, were also forced to forfeit £190 million after a National Crime Agency investigation into their unexplained wealth. They are subject to extradition proceedings by Pakistan.
The development is also challenging for Labour, which has been heavily criticised for failing to take action against party figures linked to child-sex offenders.
Sir Keir Starmer has repeatedly apologised for appointing Lord Mandelson as ambassador to the United States when he knew the peer had maintained close links with Jeffrey Epstein, the late paedophile.
The party was also forced to suspend Lord Doyle, one of Starmer’s new peers, after The Sunday Times revealed he had campaigned for a man charged with child sex offences. At one point during the controversy over Mandelson and Doyle, Emma Lewell, a Labour MP, revealed a member of the public accused her of belonging to the “paedo protectors party”.
The June gathering was one of Ahmed’s first known public appearances since his release from prison for crimes he described as a “malicious fiction”, but which the judge at Sheffield crown court, sentencing him in 2022, said had inflicted “profound and lifelong effects” on his victims.
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As Ahmed remains a lord, though one without a parliamentary seat, his attendance at the event provided apparently helpful publicity for the property developers. Ahmed gave an interview in which he praised their work and said the Dubai scheme was a great opportunity. His name and title were repeatedly referenced in subsequent promotional material. It was also a chance for Ahmed to attempt to restore his reputation by appearing with respected British-Pakistani figures, such as Khan, and mingling with wealthy members of the diaspora, at whom the event was aimed.
There is no evidence that Khan appeared uncomfortable about Ahmed or that he left on realising he was there. Footage shows that, despite his claim to have attended “briefly”, he stayed to give several interviews in English and Urdu ranging from the merits of buying property in Dubai to the state of the British economy and Pakistani politics. He also praised the developers’ record in the sector.
The development, called Waada, promises to create “limitless living” in an undeveloped and mostly barren area near Al Maktoum airport. The proposal is for apartments, mansions and a five-star hotel that could together accommodate 40,000 people, focused on scale models of the Eiffel Tower and Istanbul’s Blue Mosque.
Those behind it, Riaz and Malik of the Bahria Town conglomerate, have not built in the UAE before. However, circumstances have forced them out of Pakistan, where they made their name building gated communities and once had close links with the political and military establishment. Now they face corruption and money-laundering charges and extradition from the UAE after refusing to appear at court hearings.
Khan and Ahmed appeared in the procession next to Shahid Mahmood Qureshi, the developer’s global head of sales, who, days earlier, had been the subject of an arrest warrant issued in Pakistan in connection with alleged corruption.
Alongside Khan, Naz Shah, the Labour MP, and Ayoub Khan, an independent, attended roadshow events held in London, Birmingham and Manchester last June to drum up interest among the Pakistani diaspora.
Khan speaking in the Commons in NovemberAlamy
On April 4 The Sunday Times notified the Labour Party of Khan’s contact with Ahmed after the MP spent a number of days refusing to respond to queries. The party signed off his eventual response, but does not appear to have challenged any of his assertions. It did not issue a statement of its own.
Khan, 68, a former police officer and solicitor who has three children, served as a shadow minister under Jeremy Corbyn and Starmer. After the last general election, he was appointed a government trade envoy — widely seen as a way of rewarding political allies — but resigned after courting controversy in Turkey, with whom he was tasked with boosting ties, by visiting northern Cyprus.
Ahmed, also 68, was the first Pakistani councillor in Rotherham and was made a life peer in 1998, when Sir Tony Blair was prime minister.
In 2008, Ahmed was jailed after engaging in “prolonged, deliberate, repeated and highly dangerous” texts while driving shortly before his vehicle collided with a stationary car, killing its driver. He was released early after appealing. In 2013, he resigned from Labour after blaming his imprisonment on a Jewish conspiracy.
Ahmed outside the Lords in 2018Alamy
The married father of three retired from the Lords in November 2020, shortly after the upper chamber for the first time recommended the expulsion of a peer after concluding Ahmed had sexually exploited a vulnerable woman.
Less than two years later, he pleaded not guilty but was convicted of historic offences, which took place when he was himself a teenager in the 1970s. His youth at the time had implications for the case and Ahmed was able to reduce his sentence on appeal from five years and six months to two years and six months, after arguing the law had been applied incorrectly.
He was later refused permission to stage a full appeal against the conviction.
Despite his decision to forfeit his parliamentary seat and his subsequent conviction, Ahmed remains a lord and can be addressed as such. He cannot enter the chamber or cast votes based on his present status, but could only be removed as a peer under legislation. A similar measure is being considered in the case of Mandelson, who is under criminal investigation for misconduct in public office.
In a promotional interview for the property company, Ahmed declared that he personally knew Riaz, the allegedly corrupt founder of Bahria Town, the developer of the Dubai project. He said: “I think it is a great opportunity for those who want to invest in property”.
Land registry records show Ahmed owns a gated, detached property in Rotherham. It is not known whether he still works. He resigned his directorship of various companies, including a property venture, around the time of his conviction.