Tower Hamlets mayor Lutfur Rahman has been thrown out of office after being found guilty of corruption and illegal practices during election.
The results of his re-election as mayor of the east London borough in 2014 was declared ‘void’ by Election Commissioner Richard Mawrey, who sat as a judge in the special High Court hearing.
The Bangladesh-born politician was banned from contesting any more elections and ordered to vacate his post immediately.
The court also slapped a £250,000 fine on Rahman and convicted Alibor Choudhury, his Cabinet Member for Resources, of illegal practices.
Rahman’s party ‘Tower Hamlets First’ told the BBC they were seeking legal advice for a judicial review against the ‘shocking’ judgment.
The election commissioner, however, said Tower Hamlets First was “never really a party but the alter ego of Lutfur Rahman”.
An independent social democrat, Rahman was elected in last year’s May by a margin of 3,000 votes.
He was dragged to court by four voters who accused him of running a systematic campaign of intimidation.
Rahman was also accused of bribing religious groups, tempering with ballot papers, fraud in postal voting and also at polling stations.
The group of voters led by Andy Erlam filed a 70-page dossier in August last year.
Rahman massively breached election rules and ‘didn’t care’, said Election Commissioner Mawrey.
Alibor Choudhury
He played the “race” and “religious” cards to gain ground against Labour Party rival John Biggs, said Election Commissioner Mawrey to outline his conclusion.
The first Muslim elected mayor in Britain ran a “ruthless and dishonest campaign to convince electorate his rival Biggs was a racist.”
Tower Hamlets has the largest concentration of Bangladeshis in the UK, a total of 32 percent.
‘Considerable disquiet’ was caused by Rahman’s supporters on polling day, said the judge, and that corrupt practices had “extensively prevailed”.
As a witness, Rahman had been ‘evasive’ and ‘untruthful on occasion,’ said Mawrey.
‘Proud to be controversial’
The now-disgraced mayor of Tower Hamlets had verbally attacked UK Local Government Minister Eric Pickles, saying he was proud of being wrapped in controversies.
In November, Pickles, the communities secretary, ordered a government-commissioned investigation that found evidence of financial irregularities in the Tower Hamlets council.
Three administrators were appointed to keep the local government department informed.
It also found a “lack of transparency” in the process of awarding grants.
The probe had accused Rahman of ‘inappropriate expenditure’ of public fund on his political advertising.
But Rahman rejected all evidence of fraud.
It is widely alleged that Rahman received funding and support from the Jamaat-e-Islami, whose activities are headed in the UK by Chowdhury Mueen-Uddin.
Mueen-Uddin is a death-row fugitive convicted of murdering Bengali intellectuals during the Liberation War.
The Al-Badr operative from 1971 garners much of Jamaat’s funds from a strong support base centered at East London Mosque, it is also alleged.
Andrew Gilligan, senior journalist for the Daily Telegraph and Sunday Telegraph, dubbed Rahman as ‘an extremist-linked mayor’ in his blog.
Gilligan also accused him of ‘religious favouritism’ and taking ‘close help from Islamic extremists’ to win as Labour councillor of Tower Hamlets in 2008.
He later stood against the official mayor candidate of the party as an independent in 2010 and came to be the first Bengladeshi to hold the post.
He launched ‘Tower Hamlets First’ for contesting in the borough, six months before the 2014 election.
Source: Bd news24
