Martin Mullaney, Councillor for Moseley & Kings Heath, Birmingham

Aston and Bordesley Green Vote Fraud Trial

Friday 11th March 2005

1
1 Friday, 11th March 2005
2 (10.10 am)
3 MR DE MELLO: Sir, please excuse the fact that we asked you
4 to stay out. Thank you very much.
5 THE COMMISSIONER: I have seen the document that you
6 obtained.
7 MR BROOK: Can I explain where that document comes from.
8 You may remember the evidence of WPC Grundy that she
9 took a list of names and in fact when asked where that
10 list was, she said that it is what we call an intelligent system at
11 work.
12 I understand what happened is when the petitioners
13 spoke to these various police officers, obviously WPC
14 Grundy disclosed that she had put that information on
15 this police computer, the police then took a decision
16 whether this information should be disclosed or not.
17 You can see what was disclosed. Can I just explain
18 that the large areas is basically how the computer
19 system works, the particular computer system that is
20 covered by PII. This was disclosed to the petitioners on
21 the day before the trial.
22 Perhaps unfortunately, the bottom part of the
23 document covering the Official Secrets Act 1988 has
24 caused some confusion. When I was asked by Mr De Mello
25 if there were any documents, I then spoke to the police
2
1 and they told me about this document. It was not on the
2 original police disclosure because it only came to light
3 in the morning before the trial.
4 MR SUKUL: Sir, good morning. There is not a great deal
5 more that I can add other than what my learned friend
6 who represents the DPP has said. There has been
7 disclosure by the police. My view was that once I had
8 seen what was written at the bottom, that worried me.
9 In addition to that, the contents of the document in
10 fact helps my case considerably. But I thought that
11 I ought not to play with trouble and hence the reason
12 why I chose not to make a point of it, because there was
13 about 15 or 20 minutes of argument between DC McLaren
14 and myself at the police station before that extract was
15 taken out of the file.
16 THE COMMISSIONER: I take it that both you and Mr De Mello
17 are quite happy that I should see that document.
18 MR SUKUL: We made that decision.
19 THE COMMISSIONER: And Mr Hayes is equally happy?
20 MR DE MELLO: I am happy. Mr Hayes may want to say
21 something.
22 THE COMMISSIONER: I shall admit it in evidence. As it is
23 produced by Mr Brook I shall mark it DPP1.
24 MR HAYES: I am just very concerned that this should appear
25 today. No criticism of my learned friend, but if the
3
1 petitioners do have evidence which affects this case, it
2 should have been dealt with perhaps in a more
3 appropriate manner.
4 THE COMMISSIONER: Yes, and of course I have the list of
5 names.
6 MR HAYES: Oh yes. That is pertinent, very pertinent,
7 particularly for my learned friend Mr De Mello. He will
8 be more happy -- I am content rather than happy because
9 what concerns me is that none of the envelopes were
10 sealed, which is of great concern particularly when
11 I took great pains to correct the police officers about
12 this.
13 THE COMMISSIONER: There we are. I shall admit this
14 document for what it is worth, and I shall hear anyone's
15 submissions on it in due course.
16 MR HAYES: I really do not want to waste the court's time.
17 I put a marker.
18 THE COMMISSIONER: It may or may not take us very much
19 further.
20 MR HAYES: If you do not think it takes us very much further
21 I will not press any point.
22 THE COMMISSIONER: It may or may not. I will have to hear
23 the submissions of everybody. Obviously Mr Sukul will
24 have to give thought as to whether and to what extent
25 it is still the case that Councillor Afzal was at the
4
1 warehouse.
2 MR HAYES: Absolutely. My concern obviously is whether we
3 should recall WPC Grundy so that I can cross-examine her
4 as to her allegation that none of the envelopes were
5 sealed. If you do not think it is fruitful, sir, I will
6 not waste the court's time.
7 MR DE MELLO: Before my learned friend sits down, something
8 turns up from his point. If my learned friend Mr Sukul
9 were to, after some considered thought, take the view
10 that he is not going to press the case that Councillor
11 Afzal went to the warehouse and was there --
12 THE COMMISSIONER: He was there when the police came.
13 MR DE MELLO: Yes. Then I would not need to recall WPC
14 Grundy merely to cross-examine her that she was mistaken
15 about that identification.
16 You may take a view that it is open to you not to
17 attach much weight to her identification in the way that
18 it has arisen.
19 THE COMMISSIONER: We have apparent conflict between that
20 and the list of names that was taken here.
21 MR DE MELLO: Yes.
22 THE COMMISSIONER: It may be something that I have to
23 resolve but I think you have that evidence. I will
24 reserve my position, I think, as to whether WPC Grundy
25 should be recalled until a later stage but I will leave
5
1 that, as it were, an open question for the moment.
2 MR HAYES: After listening to my learned friend I have
3 slightly hardened my position because if she was totally
4 wrong about Mr Afzal, she was certain it was Mr Afzal,
5 clearly that is wrong. She seems to be certain that
6 none of the envelopes were sealed. That undermines her
7 credibility.
8 THE COMMISSIONER: The problem with that is if this is
9 a correct record of who was there and relied on as such,
10 then it may be considered -- I have no doubt it will be
11 argued -- that it is a correct record with regard to
12 what they found.
13 So it is a two-edged weapon. On one view of it, as
14 it were, it establishes Mr De Mello's alibi for him, but
15 on the other it does not necessarily help those who were
16 at the warehouse as to what was found.
17 So I am inviting that to be reconsidered later.
18 I will leave it to a later stage when you have all had
19 a chance to think further about it.
20 Mr Coppel?
21 MR COPPEL: Sir, I propose to read the statement of Lynne
22 Taylor.
23 THE COMMISSIONER: I said last night that was the best thing
24 to do this morning.
25
6
1 Witness Statement Read of Lynne Taylor
2 MR COPPEL: You have it at page 530 of the bundle. It is
3 signed and dated 3rd February 2005. Omitting the formal
4 parts, it states:
5 "I have been employed in the elections office as an
6 electoral assistant since 1990. My role is
7 administrative in function and I assist the electoral
8 services manager, Cheryl Mulvihill. I have been
9 involved with all forms of elections since 1990 but also
10 during the preceding years when I worked as a temporary
11 member of staff.
12 "At time of the June 2004 elections, I was assisting
13 Sarah Pearce, Cheryl's predecessor, and was part of a
14 team led by Cheryl and was responsible for, amongst
15 others, registration of voters and processing
16 obligations to vote by post. In the pre-count openings
17 that took place at Victoria Square during the week of
18 the count, I was part of the elections office team
19 providing support to the staff at Victoria Square. Such
20 support included arranging for counting staff to be
21 present and, where necessary, occasionally helping to
22 open the postal votes. I recall assisting for a short
23 time on the Aston second opening on the Thursday
24 morning. See the schedule for opening at tab 6 of the
25 Returning Officer's witness exhibit bundle B. As well
7
1 as some other wards although I do not remember which
2 ones.
3 "I do remember that the Aston opening was completed
4 during the time allowed, although obviously there was
5 a small amount of remaining unopened postal votes that
6 had been delivered after the second opening had finished
7 that were put into grey post office crates to
8 distinguish them from the count ballot papers in ballot
9 boxes. The crates which were used for this purpose, and
10 this was the case for most wards, were covered up with
11 paper and sellotaped across the top and sides to make
12 them as secure as possible so that no votes would fall
13 out. At around 6 pm on Thursday evening, all the ballot
14 boxes and post office crates containing unopened postal
15 votes for all the wards were counted by me, and I seem
16 to recall Mike O'Loughlin, and recorded on a paper
17 schedule before being transported to the NIA by Grange
18 Removals.
19 "The schedule was taken with the boxes and crates in
20 order that John Gale could count them off at the other
21 end of the NIA. On the morning of the count, Friday
22 11th June 2004, I was asked by Cheryl Mulvihill to bring
23 to the National Indoor Arena with my colleague
24 Sheila Hurst all those postal votes that had been left
25 at the elections office the previous day. These were
8
1 postal votes that had been delivered to the elections
2 office in the late afternoon, early evening on polling
3 day. The majority of the postal votes were in carrier
4 bags with a handful of loose ones next to them, and
5 I remember seeing the bags on one side of the office
6 after I had returned to Victoria Square on the Thursday
7 night.
8 "I remember that I was there until the close of
9 poll, 10 pm, before leaving for the night with the other
10 elections office staff. The carrier bags had been" --
11 THE COMMISSIONER: Mr Coppel, may I interrupt you. That is
12 slightly ambiguous. Where do you suppose the "there"
13 was where she was until close of poll? Victoria Square
14 or the elections office? It is not quite clear.
15 MR COPPEL: Elections office, as I understood it.
16 THE COMMISSIONER: "I remember I was there until close of
17 poll." Whether that was Victoria Square or the
18 elections office -- nothing may turn on it, I just
19 wondered where "there" was.
20 MR COPPEL: The natural sense is that she said she returned
21 from Victoria Square, so she is not at Victoria Square
22 and, secondly, Mr Owen is whispering to me that she was
23 at the elections office.
24 THE COMMISSIONER: It is an uncontested statement, it would
25 help just to clarify that. She comes from Victoria
9
1 Square at some stage in the evening and stays at the
2 election office until the close of poll.
3 MR COPPEL: I shall take steps to ensure that is clarified.
4 THE COMMISSIONER: If you could, because there is a slight
5 ambiguity there.
6 MR COPPEL: "The carrier bags had been locked in the
7 elections office overnight by a senior member of staff
8 as they are the only ones that have keys shortly after
9 the close of poll, although I do not recall which member
10 of staff actually locked the office.
11 "As far as I can recall, I had one bag containing
12 postal votes. I remember this because I have a sore
13 shoulder and could not lift more than one bag because
14 they were full of postal votes, and my colleague
15 Sheila Hurst had two such bags which we collected from
16 the elections office on the morning of 11th June 2004
17 and then transported to the NIA in a car driven by
18 Sheila's husband.
19 "When we get to the NIA some time before 8 am, both
20 Sheila and myself went into the nearest counting pen,
21 which happened to include Aston, with the carrier bag.
22 We emptied the carrier bags and began sorting out the
23 votes for each ward. The majority of postal votes were
24 for Aston and these were therefore put into the
25 sturdiest carrier bag we could find. I believe this may
10
1 have been a Nickleby bag although I cannot be sure of
2 that. I do not recall putting a bundle of European
3 votes in the bag but I have seen the draft of Alison
4 Harding's witness statement, paragraph 7, and I have no
5 reason to believe that they were not in the bag.
6 "Postal votes for the other wards were distributed
7 to the appropriate counting pens for each ward. As far
8 as I can recall, I placed the carrier bag full of Aston
9 postal votes with the ballot boxes and postal crates
10 containing postal votes for Aston, which had already
11 been brought over from Victoria Square the night before.
12 After we had distributed the additional postal votes,
13 Sheila went across to the Washwood Heath pen to assist
14 with the count and I went across to the Bordesley Green
15 ward pen to assist with the count. I think I left the
16 NIA some time around 5 pm."
17 There follows a statement of truth.
18 THE COMMISSIONER: Thank you.
19 Mr Hayes, you were going to put before me the
20 evidence of three witnesses.
21 MR HAYES: Yes. Mr Mohammed Najib, Mr Wahid Najib.
22 THE COMMISSIONER: Have they been put in the bundle?
23 MR HAYES: Yes. I do not know whether the clerk has put
24 them in the bundle. You certainly had them loose last
25 night.
11
1 Sir, when you get to Mr Wahid Najib's you will
2 notice that paragraph 6 is blanked out. It was
3 a request quite sensibly from my learned friend,
4 Mr Brook.
5 THE COMMISSIONER: Right.
6 MR HAYES: There is nothing sinister in it.
7 THE COMMISSIONER: I am quite prepared to assume that you
8 all know what you are doing. You need not answer that,
9 Mr Hayes.
10 MR HAYES: Might it be fruitful to discuss the other
11 witnesses I was proposing?
12 THE COMMISSIONER: Do you have any agreement between you and
13 the petitioners?
14 MR HAYES: I am afraid I have not had the opportunity of
15 speaking to Mr Sukul today. I do not know what his
16 position is.
17 THE COMMISSIONER: I think the answer is you had better have
18 a word with him during the day. Open court is not
19 necessarily the best place to have a word with him, and
20 obviously a word with the other two parties in it.
21 I assume they say nothing that impinges on
22 Mr Coppel's clients.
23 MR HAYES: Oh no.
24 THE COMMISSIONER: That being so, we are clearly going to go
25 into next week with evidence because we are going to
12
1 have to go through the handwriting evidence. We are
2 going to be here, sadly, at least Monday, possibly into
3 Tuesday, depending on what we do with the 19 people who
4 have been summonsed.
5 MR HAYES: I will be representing one of those people.
6 THE COMMISSIONER: So you will be here anyway, and Mr Brodie
7 will undoubtedly be here because it is his list.
8 So I have Tariq Hussain, Mohammed Najib, and Wahid
9 Najib. Which would you like to call first?
10 MR HAYES: Mohammed Najib.
11 MR SUKUL: Sir, may I ask you this, whilst Mr Najib is
12 preparing to give his evidence, can you enquire whether
13 or not the two other witnesses, Mr Wahid Najib and
14 Mr Tariq Hussain, are in court?
15 THE COMMISSIONER: Are the other two in court?
16 A. No.
17 MR MOHAMMED NAJIB (sworn)
18 Examination-in-chief by MR HAYES
19 MR HAYES: Is your name Mohammed Najib?
20 A. Yes.
21 Q. You live at the address -- I think it would be helpful
22 if the witness could see his statement.
23 A. I have it in my pocket.
24 Q. Good. Could you turn to the last page of your
25 statement. You have signed this, have you not?
13
1 A. Yes.
2 THE COMMISSIONER: But not dated, my copy.
3 MR HAYES: When did you sign it?
4 A. Two days ago.
5 Q. You say here:
6 "I believe that --
7 THE COMMISSIONER: So I can write in the 9th?
8 MR HAYES: Yes.
9 You say at the bottom:
10 "I believe that the facts stated in this witness
11 statement are true." Is that right?
12 A. Yes.
13 Q. You are Mohammed Najib, Managing Director of NT
14 International plc of 75 Birch Road East, Wrylie
15 Industrial Estate, Witton, Birmingham. And you say
16 this:
17 "On 8th June 2004, I went to the Labour campaign
18 office in the late evening, some time after 10.30 pm.
19 After a while, Zulfikar Khan came, he told us that Ayoub
20 Khan's brothers were outside the office. There was some
21 discussion about the safety of the ballot papers which
22 people had brought to the campaign office. It was felt
23 that the building was not safe to keep the postal votes.
24 "I suggested putting the postal votes in a safe at
25 my warehouse. They took my advice and agreed to go to
14
1 my warehouse. I did not have the keys in my pocket at
2 the time, therefore I rang my brother Tariq Hussain and
3 my son Wahid and they brought the keys and I met them
4 outside the warehouse.
5 "We opened the warehouse, and went inside. After
6 a short while Mr Mohammed Islam, Mr Mohammed Amin Kazi
7 and Mr Zulfikar Khan arrived and I took them to my
8 office upstairs and I said to them, "Can you count the
9 votes before putting them in my safe?" as it was a big
10 responsibility.
11 "Zulfikar emptied the bag on to the table. All the
12 envelopes were sealed except for a few. In the
13 meantime, Mr Islam received a telephone call and he said
14 "I need to go back to the office, can someone drop me
15 off?" I said I would take him. I went downstairs,
16 opened the door and saw two female police officers
17 standing at the door. They asked me what I was doing.
18 I said we were doing some work and they said, "Can we
19 see what you are doing". I took them upstairs. They
20 took the names and addresses of all present. While the
21 officers were there they did not allow us to talk or
22 touch anything. The officers asked several questions
23 and Zulfikar Khan gave them the replies. They then
24 called extra officers and another three male officers
25 arrived.
15
1 "The two officers took one of the postal votes and
2 visited some address. After some time, the officers
3 came back and they were satisfied. Then all the police
4 left from our premises. After some time, possibly 20
5 minutes to half an hour later, three officers came back
6 again after some discussion with Zulfikar Khan, the
7 officers put the votes in the bag and took them away.
8 "I believe that the facts stated in this witness
9 statement are true."
10 Mr Najib, if you wait there, there will be some
11 questions for you.
12 Cross-examination by MR DE MELLO
13 MR DE MELLO: Mr Najib, I represent Councillor Afzal, as you
14 probably know.
15 I want to ask you a few questions. Paragraph 1 of
16 your statement, please:
17 "On 8th June I went to the Labour campaign office in
18 the late evening, some time after 10.30."
19 Yes?
20 A. Yes.
21 Q. What vehicle were you then driving?
22 A. A black Mercedes. My own car.
23 Q. Secondly, can you tell me who Tariq Hussain is?
24 A. My younger brother.
25 Q. Do you know what vehicle he was driving?
16
1 A. A BMW.
2 Q. Thirdly, can you tell me who Wahid Najib is?
3 A. He is my son.
4 Q. He is under 40?
5 A. He is 24.
6 Q. And what vehicle was he then driving?
7 A. A Lexus. A black Lexus.
8 Q. Fourthly, you obviously know Councillor Afzal?
9 A. For a long time.
10 Q. Do you know what vehicle he owned in June 2004? If
11 you have no recollection please say so.
12 A. He drives a Datsun, I think, about 10 or 15 years old.
13 For a long time. I am not sure exactly.
14 Q. When you got to the Labour campaign office on Witton
15 Road, did you see Councillor Afzal in his car outside
16 the Labour office?
17 A. No.
18 Q. Was he in the Labour campaign office at any time?
19 A. Not that day, no.
20 Q. Next, was he at any time in the warehouse that evening?
21 A. No.
22 Q. And did he come at all to the warehouse or drive towards
23 the warehouse?
24 A. Not that day, no.
25 MR DE MELLO: Those are my questions.
17
1 THE COMMISSIONER: Mr Brook?
2 MR BROOK: No questions.
3 MR COPPEL: No questions.
4 Cross-examination by MR SUKUL
5 MR SUKUL: Mr Najib, good morning to you.
6 A. Good morning to you too.
7 Q. It pleases me to see that you have touched the holy book
8 to take the oath this morning in the court.
9 A. Yes.
10 Q. Mr Najib, did you actually attend the Labour campaign
11 office on the evening of the 8th June?
12 A. Yes.
13 Q. And are you certain that Councillor Afzal was not in any
14 part, any part, of your warehouse on the night of
15 8th June? Are you certain of that? Certain means sure.
16 A. I said on 8th June, the whole day I never saw him.
17 Q. But does that mean that you are certain he could not
18 have been in any part, not necessarily your office, any
19 part of that huge warehouse that you have?
20 A. I only have one door at the front, and I never see him
21 coming in that door. At that time of the night there
22 was no other people that night. Mr Afzal is not a small
23 (inaudible).
24 Q. I am not understanding you.
25 A. I am trying to say to you that that day, I never saw
18
1 him. Anywhere that day.
2 Q. Let me make sure that I have got it right. During the
3 course of the day you did not see Mr Afzal?
4 A. Not that day, no.
5 Q. I understand that.
6 A. Not in the evening as well.
7 Q. And during the course of the evening you did not see
8 Mr Afzal?
9 A. No.
10 Q. My question to you is this: as far as your personal
11 knowledge goes, Mr Najib, I have no quarrels with you,
12 I am asking you this: as far as your personal knowledge
13 goes, are you certain that Mr Afzal was not in any part
14 of that warehouse on the night of 8th June, at any time
15 during the night of 8th June?
16 A. No.
17 Q. You are not certain or are you certain?
18 A. I said I am certain. He was not there.
19 Q. My suggestion to you is that you knew Mr Afzal was there
20 and you are not telling this court the truth. So be it.
21 A. If you want me to repeat, I can repeat again.
22 Q. Do not repeat, please.
23 Can you remember your own mobile telephone number?
24 A. Yes, I know my own number.
25 Q. All right. Have a look at that number. (Handed)
19
1 That is your number, is it?
2 A. Yes.
3 THE COMMISSIONER: Is that the same number as I have on the
4 piece of paper here?
5 MR SUKUL: Indeed yes. I am sure it is.
6 MR DE MELLO: Can you read out the number?
7 MR SUKUL: I would prefer not to. I am happy to write it on
8 a piece of paper and let Mr De Mello have it, but in
9 fairness to Mr Najib I would not want people to know
10 that.
11 THE COMMISSIONER: I think the answer is, can I mark on this
12 piece of paper Mr M Najib's mobile phone number.
13 You are happy with that, are you?
14 A. Yes.
15 THE COMMISSIONER: Can that be shown to Mr De Mello, please,
16 and also Mr Hayes? (Handed)
17 MR SUKUL: I will come back, Mr Najib, to that number in due
18 course.
19 THE COMMISSIONER: While we are doing that, can somebody
20 remind me which page I will find the police log that we
21 have had in evidence?
22 MR HAYES: 719, sir. It starts at 717.
23 THE COMMISSIONER: Thank you very much.
24 MR SUKUL: Mr Najib, just to take things in sequence, I am
25 with you at the Labour campaign office that night. You
20
1 make the point that you were there. I am saying that
2 you were not but you say that you were.
3 There was some discussion, was there not, concerning
4 the bag of votes?
5 A. Yes.
6 Q. And it is confirmed to the court that it is right, it
7 was you who offered to keep the bag of votes in your
8 safe?
9 A. Yes.
10 Q. But you have never offered to keep a bag of votes in
11 your safe on any previous occasion?
12 A. No.
13 Q. This is the first and the only time that you have
14 offered to keep a bag of votes at your safe?
15 A. Yes.
16 Q. What made you feel that you should do it on that night
17 when you never did it on any previous night?
18 A. What previous night?
19 Q. Any night previous to 8th June, take any one you want.
20 A. I do not think I went every night in the Labour campaign
21 office.
22 Q. Okay.
23 A. And secondly, nobody ever talked about anything, about
24 the votes. I do not know if there was any other time
25 any votes were in that office before. It was only while
21
1 I was there and they started discussing about the fear
2 and I said, "If you are not feeling safe, my warehouse
3 is only about two minutes away, and if you feel safe
4 there, I can put it there for you". That was the only
5 reason.
6 Q. Who was talking about the safety of the votes?
7 A. Mr Zulfikar and Mr Islam.
8 Q. Mr Zulfikar and Mr Islam; those are the two?
9 A. I think Mr Kazi was there as well, but I am not sure
10 whether three of them told me or two of them, but
11 definitely I know Mr Zulfikar and Mr Islam were talking.
12 Q. Mr Kazi was present?
13 A. I think, yes.
14 Q. And yourself?
15 A. Yes. And quite a few, I think there was maybe another
16 seven or eight people.
17 THE COMMISSIONER: So at the time when the decision is taken
18 to remove these votes to the warehouse, Mr Islam is
19 there.
20 A. (Witness nods)
21 THE COMMISSIONER: And Mr Kazi is there.
22 A. Yes.
23 THE COMMISSIONER: We know that Councillor Afzal is
24 a gentleman who is very senior and has been a councillor
25 for a very long time. Did anybody suggest as he was not
22
1 there that he should be telephoned to tell him what was
2 going on?
3 A. Not to my knowledge, nobody asked him.
4 THE COMMISSIONER: It seems slightly surprising to keep
5 Councillor Afzal in the dark because he is a very
6 experienced politician and he may have had some advice
7 on the subject.
8 A. I think Mr Zulfikar and Kazi and Mr Islam (inaudible).
9 THE COMMISSIONER: I am not criticising you at all, I was
10 just slightly surprised that it does not appear in your
11 statement.
12 MR SUKUL: Did anybody suggest that Mr Afzal should be
13 consulted before 275 valuable Labour votes were moved
14 from the campaign office to an unauthorised warehouse
15 in the dark?
16 A. Not while I was there, no.
17 Q. What about you, did you think about it?
18 A. As I told you, Mr Islam and Mr Kazi and Zulfikar, they
19 were the three people who were all the time involved.
20 I never collected any votes myself.
21 Q. I did not ask you that. Did you think about calling the
22 gentleman Mr Afzal, yes or no?
23 A. Why should I call him? It is the duty of Mr Zulfikar,
24 I believe he was an agent or something like that. I am
25 not sure what his position was. I think he was the most
23
1 responsible person, I do not know. It is their duty,
2 not my duty.
3 Q. The reason why you or indeed anybody else thought not to
4 call Mr Afzal is because he was present that night in
5 the Labour campaign office. No need to call him, the
6 man is standing there, is that not what happened?
7 A. Mr Sukul, I told you, I know Mr Afzal for a long, long
8 time, right? I can recognise him from a hundred yards
9 away so I do not have to tell you that he was there
10 because the office is very small. I can recognise him
11 right away.
12 Q. You were there, Mr Najib?
13 A. I was there, I told you before. I was there.
14 Q. Were you frightened yourself that these men could come
15 and burgle through the steel shutters and burn the
16 votes, were you afraid that might happen? How did you
17 feel?
18 A. I do not know the security of the premises because when
19 I go there, I only sit there. I do not know how secure
20 this building is. Mr Islam had a fear about it and he
21 knows his premises better than I do. I do not know how
22 secure they are.
23 Q. You see, Mr Najib, no such fear existed in your mind or
24 in anybody else's mind. I suggest to you that the plan
25 was contrived by you and your colleagues to take those
24
1 275 open ballots and mark them yourselves X,X, X, Labour,
2 Labour, Labour. That is what happened, is it not?
3 A. Mr Sukul, I told you, I never collected one vote.
4 Q. You collected 275, not one?
5 A. I never collected one vote from anybody, right? My vote
6 was included also, I was never at all afraid of
7 anything.
8 Q. At any rate, you say in your witness statement that
9 yourself and somebody else got into a car, is that right
10 or what did you do?
11 A. I rode in my own car.
12 Q. And you made your way to the warehouse?
13 A. Yes.
14 THE COMMISSIONER: On your own?
15 A. Yes.
16 MR SUKUL: Who took the votes? Who took the valuable 275
17 votes?
18 A. I think Zulfikar and Mr Kazi, they were there. In their
19 own car.
20 Q. But if you were all so frightened that the Khan gang
21 will come --
22 THE COMMISSIONER: You are saying you did not take the votes
23 in your car?
24 A. No.
25 THE COMMISSIONER: And you assumed that Mr Kazi had taken
25
1 them in his car.
2 A. Mr Kazi and Mr Zulfikar. They both go together.
3 MR SUKUL: Just applying ordinary common reasoning, you
4 (inaudible) these men. You are frightened, nervous
5 (inaudible) in the car looking at you (inaudible) burn
6 the votes. You left Mr Kazi and Mr Islam alone --
7 admittedly Mr Kazi looks like a man who can take care of
8 himself but Mr Islam is a little bit shaky. No
9 disregard --
10 MR HAYES: This is not a prize fight!
11 A. I said I went in my own car, and I was not far from
12 them, and you have not seen Mr Zulfikar. I think
13 Mr Zulfikar is quite a capable young man who can defend
14 himself.
15 MR SUKUL: He, Mr Zulfikar, went with Mr Kazi and Mr Islam
16 in the same car?
17 A. I do not know about Mr Islam, but Mr Zulfikar and
18 Mr Kazi went in one car.
19 Q. And where did the votes go?
20 A. In their car.
21 Q. Are you sure of that?
22 A. All I am trying to say is that I never see who took the
23 votes from the -- because I left a few minutes early.
24 Q. How can you tell this court that the votes went with
25 Mr Kazi if you did not see it?
26
1 A. Mr Zulfikar came to my warehouse. It was in
2 Mr Zulfikar's hand, the bag was in his hand. That is
3 what I am trying to say.
4 Q. I will be very fair with you. You saw the votes in
5 Zulfikar's hand. You saw Zulfikar go with Mr Kazi in
6 the car and, for that reason, you tell the court that
7 the votes went with Mr Zulfikar and Mr Kazi. Is that
8 your evidence?
9 A. Yes.
10 THE COMMISSIONER: Mr Najib, it would help me to move
11 forward a bit in time. We know the police came to the
12 warehouse, the two women police officers, and then
13 another two officers came. Various things happened at
14 that time and then the police all went away again, do
15 you remember that?
16 A. Yes.
17 THE COMMISSIONER: We got some evidence from the police that
18 at about ten to 4 in the morning, something like that,
19 they came back to the warehouse and collected the votes.
20 Do you remember that?
21 A. Yes, I do.
22 THE COMMISSIONER: Were you there then?
23 A. Yes, I was.
24 THE COMMISSIONER: What, I think, we need a bit of
25 information on, if you can help us, is what was going on
27
1 at the warehouse between the time the police left on the
2 first occasion and the time they came back on the second
3 occasion, which seems to have been a period of about two
4 hours or slightly more.
5 A. What happened, I think after 12, straight after 12, when
6 we went to the warehouse, and within 10 to 15 minutes
7 (inaudible) the warehouse and I asked the gentleman
8 would he like to drink something, and I asked my son to
9 bring some coke from the fridge. So they had drinks for
10 maybe five, six minutes, and as soon as Mr Zulfikar put
11 the water on the table then Mr Islam had a telephone
12 call and he said, "Can somebody -- I never came in my
13 own car".
14 THE COMMISSIONER: We have all that evidence at the moment.
15 A. If you just give me 20 seconds to explain it. The first
16 time when the police came, it was about 12.30, I think,
17 something like that, thereabouts. The first instance
18 I think the police took about an hour, just over
19 an hour, something like that. An hour or an hour 20
20 minutes, so I know that it was nearly 2 o'clock when the
21 police left the first time. 1.45, something like that.
22 Then the police came back again, so as soon as the
23 police left we all starting discussing what we felt
24 about the votes, what happened to the votes. We started
25 discussing how the police know and why they came. The
28
1 ten, 15 minutes went like that, and then I asked
2 Mr Zulfikar, "Can you start counting votes so we can
3 finish it up".
4 So the vote who was few, or loose or had come out of
5 one of the envelopes. Zulfikar first of all, I think
6 maybe five or ten minutes, he put them back, then he
7 started counting in bundles of 25 and put them in the
8 envelope -- in the elastic band.
9 He put all the votes on the table in 25s, and then
10 the police knocked on the door and they came back again
11 and they start asking, the second time, the three male
12 officers came and then they started asking all the
13 questions which they never asked before.
14 I cannot remember precisely, but I think a good one
15 and a half hours or more than that, more than one and a
16 half hours they took, so it was nearly 4 o'clock when
17 the police the second time left. The police took their
18 time. When they came the second time they were asking
19 all sorts of questions to Zulfikar and then talking to
20 the radios so I think the police took the time.
21 THE COMMISSIONER: The problem with this is that this does
22 seem to be a very different view of what happened from
23 what the police said and the police evidence -- not your
24 fault at all, it is not your case, it is the case being
25 admirably conducted by counsel, but it was not actually
29
1 challenged to the police when they gave evidence that
2 they had treated the incident closed at 1.30 in the
3 morning, they had decided to re-open the incident at
4 3.50, which is two hours 20 minutes later. They then
5 sent someone round to the warehouse to collect the
6 votes.
7 So the police log, which as you know, policemen note
8 down times of everything they do, shows this period of
9 two hours and 20 minutes when according to the police
10 there are no policemen at all at the warehouse. That
11 seems to me a very different view of what happened from
12 the one you have just described. Can you account for
13 that?
14 A. I was not here on Thursday when the police were here so
15 I do not know what the police said. Nor did I read
16 their statements. So I only can say what I remember.
17 THE COMMISSIONER: Did the envelopes ever get put in the
18 safe?
19 A. They were not put in the safe because the police took
20 them away.
21 THE COMMISSIONER: When the police came to took the votes
22 they were not in the safe?
23 A. Pardon?
24 THE COMMISSIONER: When the police came to take the
25 envelopes away the envelopes were not in the safe?
30
1 A. They were still on the same table.
2 THE COMMISSIONER: And they had been on the table since the
3 police first arrived?
4 A. When the first police left, the envelopes were not
5 counted, by the second time the police came the
6 envelopes were all counted and were on the table.
7 THE COMMISSIONER: Mr Sukul, there is it is.
8 MR SUKUL: Indeed. But I have to bring him back to those
9 votes.
10 I just want to keep the thing in some kind of
11 chronological order. You and I were talking about the
12 car, these men had gone, and I was about to ask you, as
13 I am now, that if you were so frightened about the
14 safety of the votes why did you allow these gentlemen to
15 go on their own, why did you not take them in the black
16 Mercedes so you could go in a force of strength to the
17 dark warehouse?
18 A. The black Mercedes is not bulletproof, Mr Sukul.
19 MR SUKUL: The Khan mob is not tooled up, are they?
20 A. It was not a far distance, I told you.
21 THE COMMISSIONER: Given how Aston is described by Mr Hayes,
22 bulletproof would be the least you could expect. I take
23 it, Mr Najib, that you do not feel the need of
24 a bulletproof Mercedes? Business is not that tough.
25 MR SUKUL: Did you not feel it necessary, bearing in mind
31
1 you have told the court there was some kind of
2 apprehension about the safety of the votes, that you
3 should have gone in force with the gentleman there, the
4 other gentleman, perhaps the gentleman who is smiling on
5 my right. Whether or not he was there is a matter for
6 the Commissioner. Did you not feel that the four of you
7 could have gone so that the safety of the votes was much
8 more established rather than two go in one car and two
9 in another; why did the four of you not go together?
10 A. I was not afraid, I go up and down Witton Road four or
11 five times. I think Mr Kazi and Zulfikar, they should
12 have decided whether they needed any extra security or
13 not.
14 Q. As a person you were not afraid of anything, were you?
15 A. No, I am not afraid.
16 Q. Thank you very much. I wonder if I can ask my good and
17 learned friends if they can look at this document?
18 Those who assist me cannot give me a page number.
19 THE COMMISSIONER: What is it?
20 MR SUKUL: It is the product of an order that you kindly
21 made some time ago for the disclosure of Mr Afzal's
22 telephone records.
23 THE COMMISSIONER: Yes. I am not sure I still have that
24 document.
25 MR SUKUL: Mr Ayoub Khan assures me that he has served
32
1 copies on everybody else. (Pause)
2 Sir, just to keep things in perspective, may
3 I direct your attention to the last three numbers at the
4 bottom of that chart. The handwritten number that was
5 passed to you would be similar to the penultimate and
6 the one above that.
7 You notice that the time in question is --
8 THE COMMISSIONER: I notice that a call appears from this
9 list to have been made from this handset to the number
10 on the piece of paper at 21.44.
11 MR SUKUL: Quite right, that is the first one.
12 THE COMMISSIONER: Then a second one appears to have been
13 made at 23.39 and a third one appears to have been made
14 at 23.44.
15 MR SUKUL: Yes. I think it would be right if Mr Najib --
16 I am in your hands with this.
17 THE COMMISSIONER: I think you can simply ask him whether or
18 not those calls took place and, if so, what was said.
19 MR SUKUL: I am just frightened because of that earlier
20 situation.
21 Mr Najib, on the night in question, votes being
22 taken to your warehouse, can you remember at about
23 a quarter to ten that night you received a call on your
24 mobile from Mr Afzal? (Pause)
25 THE COMMISSIONER: The record seems to show him phoning your
33
1 mobile phone at about quarter to ten. Did he?
2 A. Yes, he did.
3 THE COMMISSIONER: What about?
4 A. I do not know exact time, but I think before I went to
5 the Labour campaign office.
6 MR SUKUL: I apologise to you, but I really could not
7 understand that answer.
8 A. Sorry, I can repeat.
9 THE COMMISSIONER: He said before he went to the campaign
10 office.
11 A. Mr Afzal phoned me, I think on that night there was
12 a meeting of the local Muslim community on Bragg Road
13 and I was supposed to be there myself as well.
14 MR SUKUL: What did he say about the votes and the campaign
15 office?
16 A. Could I finish first, please, to explain you. So I was
17 not there, I was supposed to go there and I could not go
18 there. Mr Afzal phoned me and he said, "Najib, you are
19 supposed to be there but I could not see you there"
20 I said, "No, I am driving, I cannot answer you, but
21 I will come to your house in a minute and explain to
22 you".
23 So after a good half an hour, 45 minutes, I think,
24 I went to his house. I tried to phone, his mobile was
25 on answering machine so I went to his house and found
34
1 he was not there. That is why I went to the Labour
2 office, otherwise I might not have gone. I thought
3 maybe in the campaign office, and when I went there
4 he was not there, so after that I think I might have
5 gone (inaudible) and when I was in the campaign office
6 because there were so many people there I could not --
7 I am not sure (inaudible).
8 THE COMMISSIONER: At 20 to midnight, can you remember where
9 you would be, would you be at the warehouse?
10 A. No, I was still at the campaign office.
11 THE COMMISSIONER: At 20 to midnight? In other words,
12 11.40.
13 A. I was still in the Labour campaign office. Because
14 I never went to the warehouse until after 12.
15 THE COMMISSIONER: Did Councillor Afzal telephone you at the
16 campaign office at 11.40?
17 A. Pardon?
18 THE COMMISSIONER: Did Councillor Afzal telephone you when
19 you were at the campaign office at 11.40 that evening?
20 A. He might have but I never answered because my telephone
21 was off.
22 THE COMMISSIONER: You see, we have one short phone call of
23 about 13 seconds. We have one lasting half a minute
24 which does not suggest that you have got somebody
25 phoning a telephone which is turned off.
35
1 MR SUKUL: Just to take you back to that previous phone call
2 at quarter to ten, that is the first one. You said
3 there was some discussion there and eventually you went
4 to Mr Afzal's house.
5 A. Yes.
6 Q. So that would have been after quarter to ten, would it
7 not?
8 A. Yes.
9 Q. And what sort of time would that have been when you went
10 to the house?
11 A. It must be after quarter past ten because I think I went
12 to the Labour office after half past ten. It might be
13 between that time.
14 Q. So if I say approximately half past ten you have arrived
15 at Mr Afzal's house and you did not find him there?
16 A. No.
17 Q. And you had no idea where he was.
18 A. I thought maybe the Labour campaign office.
19 Q. And you went straight there?
20 A. Yes.
21 Q. But in the meantime you were trying to contact him?
22 A. I tried to, but his mobile was on answering machine.
23 Q. And by the time you arrived at the Labour campaign
24 office, your evidence is that you did not find him
25 there?
36
1 A. No.
2 Q. So the next time you spoke to Councillor Afzal, the
3 Commissioner has just reminded you, would have been when
4 he telephoned you at some point in time around midnight,
5 in fact it says here 20 to 12 that night. Can you
6 remember if you received that call from him, because the
7 records are showing it?
8 A. The records may be showing it but I never received it.
9 Q. At 20 minutes to 12 there is a call lasting 24 seconds
10 from Mr Afzal's phone to your phone.
11 THE COMMISSIONER: No. It is 31 seconds. 24 is the cost
12 charge.
13 MR SUKUL: Just checking to make sure everybody is reading
14 the same documents.
15 THE COMMISSIONER: Duration. You have duration which gives
16 minute and seconds. Then you have the cost and I think
17 you were reading the wrong column. It is 24p or perhaps
18 0.24 of one pence or whatever. It lasted 31 seconds.
19 MR SUKUL: Indeed, Mr Najib, official records are showing
20 you receiving a call from Mr Afzal's mobile handset of
21 31 seconds. What was happening during the course of
22 those 31 seconds that concerns your personal mobile
23 phone?
24 A. It could be that my phone was off and he might have left
25 a message. I am not sure.
37
1 Q. Why would you want to leave your mobile off when you are
2 going to attend this important meeting and the people
3 are going to steal 275 votes, and you are telling the
4 court you are going to turn your mobile off?
5 A. I just told you that in that Labour campaign office
6 there were more than 10 or 12 people there so you do not
7 want to leave your mobile on so that people interrupt
8 other people.
9 THE COMMISSIONER: Forgive me, I am slightly baffled about
10 something. You said your mobile phone was off but
11 I understood you to say that you had phoned one of your
12 family to bring the keys round to the warehouse.
13 A. I went outside the office on my mobile, otherwise
14 I would not telephone from inside the office. I went
15 outside on the telephone. From inside I would not have
16 called anybody because it would interrupt ten people.
17 I know a mobile, when I turn it off and when I need to
18 call anybody I do not want to trouble the people. That
19 is why.
20 MR SUKUL: I am probably a little bit too dim. I want to
21 get it right.
22 THE COMMISSIONER: I take it you do not have incoming calls
23 to this phone? We do not have incoming calls to
24 Councillor Afzal's phone, is that right?
25 MR SUKUL: We do not, I am afraid.
38
1 But we have incoming calls to this gentleman's
2 phone, and let me make sure I have got your evidence
3 right because it is crucial certainly to Mr Afzal's
4 case.
5 I am suggesting to you that on the basis of these
6 records you are not telling this court the truth about
7 the fact that you say you turned your mobile off at
8 about quarter to 12 on the night of the 8th. I have
9 given you a fair opportunity to tell this court whether
10 or not your mobile was in fact active at about 20 to 12
11 on the night of the 8th June 2004. I am being as fair
12 as I can. These are the official records.
13 A. Mr Sukul, I told you, this is my normal practice.
14 I have been using a mobile telephone for almost
15 15 years. Whenever I am in a meeting or I am in the --
16 more than two or three people are sitting there, my
17 mobile is always off and if I can recall, only about
18 five or seven minutes ago, ten minutes ago, you were
19 asking me, was Mr Afzal in that office? You tell me.
20 If Mr Afzal was in that office --
21 Q. No, no, we are spending Her Majesty's money here. I am
22 asking you about this phone. I am not asking you about
23 anything else. We have to stay with the point. I have
24 had enough of this nonsense. I am asking you this, I am
25 telling you: look, you did not turn that phone off.
39
1 You are lying to the court. What do you say?
2 A. A few minutes ago you were asking me: Mr Afzal was
3 sitting with you? And now you are asking me about this
4 mobile so how can you have them together if I am in the
5 same office?
6 THE COMMISSIONER: That is a fair point. Save for the fact,
7 I think, that you say that at quarter to 12 you were not
8 at the warehouse.
9 A. I did not say quarter to 12, sir.
10 THE COMMISSIONER: You said you were still at the office at
11 quarter to 12 because I actually asked you about that.
12 A. I was still in the office, yes.
13 THE COMMISSIONER: Not the warehouse.
14 A. We went at 12 o'clock. It is only two minutes, no more
15 than two minutes from where the Labour office is to my
16 office. No more than two minutes' drive.
17 MR SUKUL: All right. You told this court that that evening
18 you were searching for Mr Afzal.
19 A. Mm-hm.
20 Q. You called him, his phone was off. Did you leave
21 a message for Mr Afzal on his voicemail that night when
22 you were looking for him?
23 A. I do not leave messages because he never answered.
24 Q. And of course Mr Afzal knows your mobile number, does he
25 not?
40
1 A. Yes.
2 Q. So if at all he had looked at his phone it is fair to
3 assume he would have seen you were looking for him. You
4 do not disguise your number, do you?
5 A. No, I do not withhold the number.
6 Q. So it is fair comment that his phone would have recorded
7 an incoming call from your own?
8 A. I phoned him only once maybe.
9 Q. You were looking for him, you were so keen to find him
10 that you went to his house, you told the court that.
11 You could not find him at 10.30, you went to the
12 campaign office to look for him. Now, why in the name
13 of good reason if you are looking for someone, phoned
14 him, went to his house, would you now take the mobile
15 phone and turn it off so as to stop him from contacting
16 you? Do you seriously expect this court to believe
17 that?
18 A. Mr Sukul, I only went to his house because he wanted to
19 talk to me about this meeting. Otherwise he was not
20 important.
21 Q. Fair enough, I have squeezed that orange.
22 Let me go to the next one. At 23.44, which is
23 quarter to 11 --
24 THE COMMISSIONER: Quarter to 12.
25 MR SUKUL: Thank you. Mr Afzal telephones you again, right?
41
1 What happened on that occasion?
2 A. I told you, after the first time I only talked to him
3 the first time after these two times -- is it two times
4 after?
5 Q. It is your phone, not mine. He has been phoning you,
6 not me.
7 A. All I am saying is one time or two times but all I know
8 is --
9 Q. I am asking about the third call.
10 A. I only talked to him the first instance (inaudible).
11 Q. So the two calls at about quarter to 12 and 20 to 12,
12 you never spoke with him?
13 A. No.
14 Q. Official records say this, the call at 20 to 12, which
15 you say you did not answer because the phone was off,
16 lasted 31 seconds. Half a minute plus one second.
17 A. Yes.
18 Q. You are saying to this court that the second call you
19 did not talk to him again, the phone was off, the mobile
20 was off, is that your evidence?
21 A. How many minutes did it take?
22 Q. I am going to tell you that so you consider your answer
23 now, because here it is: first one, when you did not
24 answer, 31 seconds, how is that the second one that you
25 say you did not answer only lasted 13 seconds, the first
42
1 one you say you did not answer lasted 31 seconds. What
2 kind of mobile phone do you have?
3 A. (Inaudible). All I am saying to you is that I never
4 talked to him.
5 Q. He left a voicemail for you that first telephone call,
6 did he?
7 A. He could have, yes.
8 Q. He probably did?
9 A. Yes.
10 Q. And he probably said to you in the voicemail, "Najib, I am
11 waiting for you at the dark warehouse, man. Bring the
12 votes". That is what he probably said but sadly I do
13 not know Urdu. I wish I did because I would have let it
14 go in this court of law because I believe passionately
15 that Mr Afzal said to you at 20 to 12 "Bring the votes,
16 man, I am waiting here in the dark at the warehouse.
17 Let me in". Something along those lines took place,
18 is that not true?
19 A. That is not true.
20 Q. Of course it is true. You had made the plan with him.
21 Five minutes afterwards he is a little bit anxious
22 because he cannot see the black Merc, and he is
23 wondering: dark night, Merc is not here, votes not here,
24 Najib not here, and he calls you again. You answer and
25 you say to him, "Don't worry, man, I am coming soon,
43
1 I have got the votes now".
2 That is what went on in those five minutes, Mr
3 Najib, is that not true?
4 THE COMMISSIONER: Remember, Mr Sukul, that everything has
5 to be taken down by the shorthand writer. Occasionally
6 your oratory does speed up, if I may put it that way,
7 and I think in the circumstances that perhaps you should
8 remember that everything is being taken down.
9 MR SUKUL: Sir, may I mention I stood with James for a few
10 minutes yesterday and begged him to accept my apologies.
11 THE COMMISSIONER: Better to avoid the problem.
12 Mr Najib, what is in fact being put to you is
13 this: that you were not at the campaign headquarters and
14 that those who were at campaign headquarters phoned you
15 to get you to open up the warehouse so they could take
16 the votes there. So that is what is being put.
17 You understand that is the case that is being put to
18 you?
19 A. Sir, I understand everything, and I just said that I was
20 in the Labour campaign office at that time.
21 THE COMMISSIONER: One of the things that is, I think,
22 slightly puzzling me, but you can help me on this,
23 is that people who were outside the office, as it were,
24 keeping watch on it, do not mention seeing any Mercedes
25 car at that point. When somebody phoned the police to
44
1 say that all sorts of skulduggery was going on they
2 named a number of cars but they did not name a Mercedes
3 as being involved.
4 Is there any reason why somebody would not have seen
5 your car leave the office and drive away to the
6 warehouse?
7 A. I cannot answer that for them, whether they have seen my
8 car or not. All I am saying is my car was there when
9 the police came, as in my own car, and I went in my own
10 car home as well.
11 THE COMMISSIONER: Why did you ask your son to come to the
12 warehouse?
13 A. Because in the middle of the night, whenever we do go to
14 open the warehouse for any reason, whether it is the
15 alarm, we always go for security reasons two or three
16 people.
17 THE COMMISSIONER: But you were already going with two or
18 three people because Mr Kazi and Mr Islam and
19 Mr Zulfikar were coming. Why did you need your son?
20 I just wonder why you should get your son out of bed to
21 go to the warehouse.
22 A. He was not in bed.
23 THE COMMISSIONER: I suppose being a young lad he would
24 still be up at midnight.
25 A. Because of the keys, that is why.
45
1 THE COMMISSIONER: But who would have the key?
2 A. My brother and my son have the keys both.
3 THE COMMISSIONER: But it is your warehouse.
4 A. Yes. I do not open every day and I do not close every
5 day myself.
6 THE COMMISSIONER: Does your brother work at the warehouse?
7 A. Yes, we have two warehouses side by side.
8 THE COMMISSIONER: Where does your brother live?
9 A. He lives in Handsworth ward.
10 THE COMMISSIONER: Can you remember the road?
11 A. Cherry Orchard Road.
12 MR SUKUL: And then in addition to bringing the lad from the
13 house with the key, you thought you would invite your
14 brother as well to the warehouse that night?
15 A. Mm-hm.
16 Q. What was the purpose of bringing -- is he younger than
17 you, Mr Wahid?
18 A. My son is.
19 Q. Mr Tariq, why does Mr Tariq have to attend?
20 A. He is younger than me.
21 Q. So he is stronger than you, is he?
22 A. We have never contested.
23 Q. But in any event you wanted an extra pair of hands at
24 the warehouse that night, did you not, Mr Najib?
25 A. He cannot read and he cannot write.
46
1 Q. But he can see?
2 A. Seeing would not help.
3 Q. And he can compare numbers, can he not?
4 A. Seeing would not help your cause.
5 Q. Cannot write but he can certainly make crosses, can he
6 not, that is why you wanted Mr Tariq Hussain there to
7 help to put the crosses in. That is the deal, is it
8 not?
9 A. It was not anybody's job to make sure that -- there were
10 enough workers to put a cross on, it was not my
11 brother's job.
12 Q. Do not become uneasy. Do you want me to give you two or
13 three minutes to settle down?
14 A. No.
15 Q. You have young Najib with the BMW and the key. You have
16 yourself in the black Merc waiting at the warehouse.
17 Why do we want younger Mr Najib to be there, and
18 you have the big man himself over there, possibly the
19 man with the glasses as well, definitely the gentleman
20 with the beard, and heaven knows how many more. Why
21 do you want Mr Tariq Hussain to be there, man?
22 A. I explained to you once.
23 Q. Tell me again.
24 A. It is normally our practice that when we go after the
25 closing hours to the warehouse, we always have two or
47
1 three people of my family.
2 Q. You had twice that number plus two.
3 A. They do not have keys.
4 Q. But they have strength. That bearded man over there,
5 you see him there? Why did you want Mr Tariq, for
6 security reasons?
7 A. I explained to you, just for the keys, that is all.
8 THE COMMISSIONER: What car does your brother drive?
9 A. A BMW.
10 THE COMMISSIONER: What colour?
11 A. Dark blue.
12 MR SUKUL: Okay, so we have a dark blue car and so on. Let
13 me take you inside the warehouse. All of this action
14 takes place in your office, does it not?
15 A. Yes.
16 Q. That is the place with a large table?
17 A. Yes.
18 Q. Upon which the votes were poured out?
19 A. Yes.
20 Q. And the votes were never counted in the end, were they?
21 A. They were counted.
22 Q. By the police, not by you?
23 A. Not by us. Because I told you, when the police came the
24 second time they were all in bundles of 25.
25 Q. I think the Commissioner has asked this, but I made
48
1 a remark yesterday which I am not going to repeat today
2 because of some confusion.
3 Why not take the bundles of 25 because the Khan lot
4 might come and steal them and burn them? As soon as you
5 finished -- bang, bang, bang, bang -- (inaudible). Why
6 did you not do that?
7 A. He was not in the (inaudible).
8 Q. Because you were relaxing.
9 A. (Inaudible) could not come inside.
10 Q. The reason is it took a lot longer to take the yellow
11 papers out and put the crosses on top. That is the
12 reason why?
13 A. They were in my warehouse (inaudible).
14 Q. Tell this court, you are under oath. Tell the court
15 that those yellow ballot papers were not exposed. Five
16 police officers have come. Booted and suited right
17 there. They all lifted the holy book, the holy book was
18 lifted in their hand, the blood of Christ in their
19 heart, and they all said that you and your people had
20 those yellow papers scattered all over that long table.
21 Drinking as if there was no tomorrow, waiting to make
22 the crosses on top. What do you say was the situation
23 with the yellow papers, Mr Najib. Tell this court now.
24 And tell the truth, were the yellow papers exposed?
25 A. Mr Sukul ...
49
1 THE COMMISSIONER: Let us take the question that has been
2 asked. The police officers have given evidence that
3 yellow ballot papers were visible on the table. Are
4 they mistaken about that or were they on the table?
5 A. Sir --
6 MR SUKUL: Were there --
7 THE COMMISSIONER: Mr Sukul, please.
8 Mr Najib, it is quite a simple question. Were these
9 yellow ballot papers on the table because it seems
10 a very odd thing for the police to have mistaken, if
11 they were not, because these are the only yellow pieces
12 of paper in these envelopes. Are you with me?
13 A. Let me put it this way. As far as I see and how
14 I remember it, if they are all the papers on the table
15 and the sergeant, I do not know his name but I know
16 he was a sergeant -- if you want me to stand up and
17 explain how the police ...
18 THE COMMISSIONER: Do demonstrate, but remember it has to be
19 taken down so we may have to describe what you are
20 doing.
21 A. The police officer asked Zulfikar, "These papers or
22 votes, you collected yourself, did you mark them or
23 something?" because I believe the way they were
24 questioning, somebody believed that they took the votes
25 there to rig them or something like that. Zulfikar
50
1 said, "Officer, you take any envelope from here, any
2 envelope you like, and check it yourself".
3 So my question is this to Mr Sukul --
4 THE COMMISSIONER: I do not think really you are asking
5 Mr Sukul questions. You are supposed to be answering my
6 question. My question is this: when the police arrived
7 they said that they saw yellow ballot papers already on
8 the table when they arrived.
9 Are they right about that or are they mistaken about
10 that?
11 A. I think they are mistaken because I remember very
12 clearly that if the yellow paper was on the table he
13 will take them and ask Mr Zulfikar, "What are you doing
14 here?" They did ask that. And they took one of the
15 envelopes and opened up, and I do not know whether they
16 opened it up there or outside, then they went to the
17 address. So they took out the envelope, they never took
18 off the table any ballot paper. They took it from the
19 envelope.
20 THE COMMISSIONER: So your evidence is that the police
21 officers are mistaken about seeing yellow ballot papers
22 already out of their envelopes and sitting on the table
23 when the police first come?
24 A. I think they are mistaken because what I am trying to
25 say is if the yellow paper was on the table, why did
51
1 they not take those, why did they take one from the
2 envelope? This is a mystery to me. Why did the police
3 do that?
4 THE COMMISSIONER: What the police took, was it not, was
5 a declaration of identity because that is the only
6 document that actually has an address on? And they went
7 somewhere on the address, do you remember that?
8 A. I remember that, yes. They took from that envelope
9 everything.
10 THE COMMISSIONER: But that was after they had arrived.
11 They say that the ballot papers were on the table when
12 they arrived. They were already there on the table,
13 open.
14 A. No.
15 THE COMMISSIONER: You say they are wrong about that?
16 A. Yes.
17 THE COMMISSIONER: Do sit down. Mr Sukul?
18 MR SUKUL: The orange is dry, sir.
19 THE COMMISSIONER: In that case, is that your
20 cross-examination?
21 MR SUKUL: That is.
22 MR DE MELLO: May I ask one question arising out of what
23 you have asked?
24 THE COMMISSIONER: Of course.
25 Further cross-examination by MR DE MELLO
52
1 MR DE MELLO: It is not contentious. Does Tariq Hussain
2 live at 113 Cherry Orchard Road?
3 A. Yes.
4 THE COMMISSIONER: He did not give the number but he did say
5 Cherry Orchard Road.
6 Re-examination by MR HAYES
7 MR HAYES: Mr Najib, may I gently lead you back to reality.
8 You are the managing director --
9 THE COMMISSIONER: I think reality may possibly be something
10 that I might have to decide at a future date. We will
11 take him back to your reality.
12 MR HAYES: Mr Najib, you are the managing director of
13 a multi-national, multi-million pound company, are you
14 not?
15 A. Yes.
16 Q. It is being said to you that you facilitated
17 a vote-forging factory in order that these three
18 councillors be corruptly elected. Is that true?
19 A. For the last 30 years I have been in business. For the
20 last 30 years that I have been in business, not a single
21 time I know of any kind of fraud, crime, any other --
22 you know, bankruptcy, insurance claims. I would not do
23 anything which I have not done for myself, right, I will
24 not do for anybody else to discredit my name to benefit
25 others.
53
1 Q. During this election, did you conspire to deprive
2 anybody of their vote?
3 A. What do you mean conspire?
4 Q. Agree to deprive someone of their vote?
5 A. No.
6 Q. Did you at any time during this election forge any vote?
7 A. No, I did not.
8 Q. At any time during this election did you agree to
9 pretend to be somebody else?
10 A. No.
11 MR HAYES: Thank you very much.
12 THE COMMISSIONER: You had better stay in court for the
13 moment while the next witness is called.
14 Which is your next witness?
15 MR HAYES: Tariq Hussain, sir.
16 MR BRODIE: Sir, I tried to printed out a hard copy of my
17 submissions. My printer refused to assist. I will have
18 a copy on Monday morning.
19 THE COMMISSIONER: Probably a conspiracy somewhere. If by
20 any happy chance I am in my chambers I will try and
21 print it out also.
22 Have you managed to print it out?
23 MR COPPEL: Yes, I got mine late yesterday afternoon.
24 THE COMMISSIONER: And are, I trust, much better informed?
25 MR COPPEL: I say nothing.
54
1 MR TARIQ HUSSAIN (sworn)
2 Examination-in-chief by MR HAYES
3 MR HAYES: Is your name Tariq Hussain?
4 A. Yes.
5 Q. And is your address the address that we have on the
6 piece of paper in front --
7 A. Yes.
8 Q. Do you have your statement at all?
9 A. Yes.
10 Q. If you could turn to the last page. You have signed it,
11 have you not?
12 A. Yes.
13 Q. But you have not dated it. What date did you sign it?
14 A. The 8th, or 9th.
15 THE COMMISSIONER: Did you read it before you signed it?
16 A. I read it but I cannot read fully.
17 THE COMMISSIONER: So somebody read it to you?
18 A. Yes.
19 MR HAYES: At the bottom there is a little statement, says:
20 "I believe that the facts stated in this witness
21 statement are true."
22 Is that right?
23 A. Sorry?
24 Q. You have signed the bottom and there is:
25 "I believe that the facts stated in this witness
55
1 statement are true."
2 Everything in this statement, is true?
3 A. Yes.
4 THE COMMISSIONER: Mr Hayes is going to read the statement
5 out.
6 MR HAYES: "I Tariq Hussain of 75 Birch Road East, Wrylie
7 Industrial Estate, Witton, Birmingham, will state as
8 follows.
9 "On 8th June 2004 I was at home in the evening and
10 I received a call from my brother Mohammed Najib and he
11 said, "Bring the key to open the warehouse". I drove
12 there in my BMW car. I waited for my brother M Najib
13 and nephew Wahid Najib. When they arrived I opened the
14 door and we went upstairs. A short time later, the
15 following people arrived: Zulfikar Khan, Mohammed Amin
16 Kazi and Mohammed Nazrul Islam.
17 "I was sitting on the settee which was near the
18 table. We were having some soft drinks. I then saw
19 Zulfikar Khan emptying a bag on to the table. After
20 a few minutes, the police arrived and they said, "You
21 cannot move or talk". Then the WPC said to me "Stop
22 speaking your own language" and took my details.
23 "Then three other officers came. After some
24 questioning, one of the police officers picked up an
25 envelope and they went somewhere. After some time, they
56
1 came back and then all the officers left. After a short
2 while three officers came back again and questioned for
3 some time. Then, after questioning, they took away the
4 envelopes.
5 "I believe that the facts stated in this witness
6 statement are true."
7 Mr Hussain, if you would be kind enough to wait
8 there, some people are going to ask you some questions.
9 Cross-examination by MR DE MELLO
10 MR DE MELLO: I have a few questions to ask you.
11 Firstly, look at your statement, paragraph 4. You
12 say that a police woman asked you to stop speaking in
13 your own language.
14 A. Yes.
15 Q. What language were you then speaking?
16 A. I was speaking with my brother in my own language.
17 THE COMMISSIONER: Urdu.
18 A. Yes.
19 MR DE MELLO: Secondly, if you turn to page 606 of
20 bundle 2. It is WPC Grundy's statement.
21 THE COMMISSIONER: Probably in view of his evidence it is
22 not wise to ask him to read it.
23 MR DE MELLO: Let me read out what this officer, WPC Grundy,
24 says in paragraph 6. I will read it out to you and
25 I will ask you one or two questions.
57
1 She says this in paragraph 6:
2 "I remember one person in specific who was sitting
3 on a sofa. I remember this man as being chubby, bald,
4 and wearing glasses. He was being very obstructive and
5 he was speaking in a different language. We did not
6 want them to speak in any other language and I told him
7 to speak in English but he refused, and continued
8 speaking in a different language. All of these men
9 I will say were over the age of 40 years."
10 What I want you to tell me is: do you recall a sofa
11 being present, was there a sofa?
12 A. Yes.
13 Q. When the policewoman spoke to you, telling you to stop
14 speaking in your own language, do you recall if you were
15 sitting on a sofa?
16 A. Yes, I was sitting on a sofa.
17 Q. In June of 2004 when this incident occurred, did you
18 have hair on your head?
19 A. Yes.
20 Q. And wearing glasses?
21 A. Yes.
22 THE COMMISSIONER: We have heard you have always had
23 a beard, is that right?
24 A. Yes.
25 MR DE MELLO: And you had a beard that night?
58
1 A. Yes, since I did not shave at all.
2 Q. Was Councillor Afzal in the warehouse that night?
3 A. No.
4 Q. Not in the room, it might be suggested?
5 A. He was not at all.
6 Q. Hiding perhaps in a cupboard or under the table?
7 A. No.
8 MR DE MELLO: Thank you.
9 MR BROOK: No questions.
10 MR COPPEL: No questions.
11 Cross-examination by MR SUKUL
12 MR SUKUL: Good morning, Mr Hussain. How are you doing?
13 A. Fine.
14 Q. If he was hiding in a cupboard, how would you know?
15 A. I said I did -- I did not say that.
16 Q. But you do not know?
17 A. I did not see him. How can I say to you that he is
18 sitting in the cupboard or whatever? I never saw him at
19 all.
20 Q. You have a little suspicion that Mr Afzal might have
21 been in the cupboard, locked the door. Policeman gone.
22 How is that? You were a little suspicious, what do you
23 say?
24 A. I have no suspicions. As we said, three hours and
25 three -- Afzal did not come at all so how can you say
59
1 he was there?
2 Q. You have a nice smile there, Mr Hussain. You heard
3 a little snippet of information that Mr Afzal was
4 probably in the cupboard making sure the police officers
5 leave, then would come out quietly, start the
6 (inaudible), go home, hit the bed. Did you hear that?
7 A. No.
8 Q. Do you not suspect that might have happened?
9 A. No.
10 Q. Sure about that?
11 A. 100 per cent.
12 Q. You touched the Koran, the holy book, careful.
13 A. I know what I am saying.
14 Q. All right. I suggest to you that you have some
15 knowledge about Mr Afzal's whereabouts on that night,
16 do you not? You have some knowledge where he was, have
17 you not?
18 A. It is not my duty to find out.
19 Q. I am asking you about your knowledge not your duty.
20 You have some little knowledge, right? Tell the court
21 what knowledge you have.
22 A. No, I did not have any knowledge.
23 Q. You have no knowledge?
24 A. (Witness shakes head)
25 Q. All right. You know, some time yesterday, Mr Hussain --
60
1 I do not have a quarrel with you, by the way. Some time
2 yesterday you were told that, or indeed you were asked,
3 "Tariq, look, there is this trial going on, the
4 Commissioner is sitting there. Can you write
5 a statement?" Somebody asked you a write a statement --
6 no, somebody asked you to give a statement. That must
7 be true, right?
8 A. Yes.
9 Q. I like that smile, you like my questions?
10 MR HAYES: Sir, I do not intend to try and shoot my learned
11 friend's fox, but of course on the very day of the trial
12 we got his statements from the police.
13 THE COMMISSIONER: I fear that shooting the fox is now all
14 you are permitted to do, Mr Hayes.
15 Is your best point possibly this, Mr Sukul: that
16 this witness would be very unwise to enter a Councillor
17 Afzal lookalike contest?
18 MR SUKUL: It would in fact be a very hairy experience!
19 THE COMMISSIONER: The more serious point is this: you do
20 not look like Councillor Afzal, do you?
21 A. No.
22 THE COMMISSIONER: You have not lost a lot of weight
23 recently, have you? Because, being serious about this,
24 and I speak as a man of girth myself, I would not
25 refer to you as chubby if I were describing you in
61
1 a statement. You see the point? You are who you are.
2 You have not lost a lot of weight?
3 A. Maybe a few pounds, but not ...
4 THE COMMISSIONER: You have always looked much as you do
5 now.
6 A. Yes.
7 MR SUKUL: There came a point in time on that night,
8 8th June, when your brother telephoned you at 11.30 or
9 thereabouts, we do not have a problem with the time, and
10 it is right he asked you to bring the keys to the
11 warehouse.
12 A. Yes.
13 Q. And you know he also made a call to his son to ask the
14 son to bring the keys?
15 A. If I explain it properly, we always, after closing time,
16 we all arrive, three people, whenever we need -- always,
17 from a security point of view.
18 Q. Okay. This is after closing time. He asked you to
19 bring the keys?
20 A. Yes.
21 Q. He asked his own son to bring the keys and the two of
22 you took the keys?
23 A. Yes.
24 Q. We know it took six people to carry one carrier bag to
25 the warehouse. Why did it take two of you to carry the
62
1 keys, is this the Florida Keys? What kind of keys are
2 they?
3 THE COMMISSIONER: How many sets of keys are there?
4 A. We have four sets of keys.
5 THE COMMISSIONER: Yes. You have one. Who had the other
6 three?
7 A. My nephew had one. Then I have another brother who had
8 one. So we have four brothers who carry keys.
9 Sometimes if I am not available --
10 THE COMMISSIONER: So Mr Mohammed Najib has his own keys.
11 He is the boss, is he not?
12 A. He does have keys but he does not carry them every time
13 he goes outside.
14 MR SUKUL: Does he carry the keys with him then, Mr Mohammed
15 Najib, the owner of the warehouse?
16 A. No.
17 Q. How do you know?
18 A. If he did have a key, why should he ask me to bring
19 a key?
20 Q. I wanted to ask you about that. When you were asked
21 eventually to come and give evidence, that was some time
22 yesterday, was it not?
23 A. Yes.
24 Q. And you had a nice little friendly discussion about the
25 evidence you were going to give today with your people?
63
1 A. Well, my statement is there, so I have to give
2 information, yes.
3 Q. And you had a little discussion even yesterday
4 afternoon, yesterday evening with them? The smile
5 again.
6 A. If they ask me to comment, give a statement, I have to
7 give the statement.
8 Q. But your evidence today, you were told that Mr Sukul is
9 going to be asking you some questions. You remember
10 that?
11 A. We know that all the jury were going to ask me
12 questions.
13 Q. And you prepared the answer for me that Mr Najib has the
14 keys but he was not carrying the keys that night, you
15 prepared that yesterday to tell me?
16 A. No, no. If I am out anywhere I do not carry my key with
17 me to cash and carry, so if I want to come back I have
18 to ring somebody to get the key.
19 Q. All right. You and your nephew took the keys?
20 A. Yes.
21 Q. It was necessary for the two of you to take the keys?
22 A. Well, sometimes, I do not know that my nephew will bring
23 the key as well so Najib would -- maybe Mohammed Najib
24 would call him to come. So we only carry keys if
25 we have to. It should not be any -- you shall not carry
64
1 two keys.
2 Q. But your evidence is you did not know he was carrying
3 the keys?
4 A. No.
5 Q. I put it to you that that is not the reason why you were
6 called to the warehouse. You were called to give them
7 a hand to sort the votes out, sort the yellow papers
8 out?
9 A. No.
10 Q. You remember the yellow papers on the table? Five
11 officers have.
12 A. No.
13 Q. You cannot remember any yellow papers at the table?
14 A. I never saw any yellow paper at all so how can
15 I remember?
16 Q. Do you as a gentleman, a reasonable gentleman, find it
17 quite unusual that five police officers say they were
18 scattered all over the table? What do you say to that?
19 A. The police have to give a --
20 Q. I like that smile.
21 A. There is no point in me hiding anything but I did not
22 see any yellow papers at all. If the police saw, then
23 they have to prove that.
24 Q. No open envelopes?
25 A. A few envelopes were open, but small envelope was
65
1 closed --
2 Q. Are you sure of that?
3 A. 100 per cent sure.
4 Q. What is the importance of the small envelope, you tell
5 the court that the small envelope was closed?
6 A. The small envelope only carry votes because I know this
7 area.
8 Q. If all the small envelopes were closed how come you know
9 the small envelopes have votes inside?
10 A. It happens that always vote will be closed in envelopes.
11 Q. You saw those yellow ballot papers, Mr Hussain, and you
12 do not want to tell the court the truth, is that not the
13 case?
14 A. I am telling the truth and I am telling the jury the
15 truth and that is true. No yellow papers at all and
16 I never saw any.
17 Q. Tell me the truth now. Last question. You know those
18 police officers came that night?
19 A. Yes.
20 Q. And then clever policeman says, "All these votes on the
21 table, something is not quite right". The police were
22 very suspicious were they not?
23 A. Yes.
24 Q. And they said to you, "No Urdu, only English", you
25 remember that?
66
1 A. Yes.
2 Q. "Do not move, everybody stay still"?
3 A. Yes.
4 Q. The policeman picked up one, keeping an eye on you
5 because you said you were a trouble maker that night?
6 A. (Inaudible).
7 Q. And then the police took the vote, you remember that?
8 A. Yes.
9 Q. And the police went, two policemen went on their way?
10 A. Yes.
11 Q. No policeman stayed, you remember that. When those two
12 officers went, Sergeant Rattenbury went on his way, so
13 you and your boys now relaxing on the settee, right?
14 A. Yes.
15 Q. I know that is right, evidence is in the court already.
16 One person took the mobile phone, as soon as
17 policeman gone, took the mobile phone, click, click,
18 click, "The policeman is coming you must tell him you
19 voted with the paper the policeman has". Who made the
20 call, was it you? The smile again. Who made the call?
21 A. The two officers went out, but the two young lady
22 officers stayed there.
23 Q. The Commissioner can show you the log.
24 A. The policeman did not come back and the two ladies
25 stayed there.
67
1 THE COMMISSIONER: Were you there when the police came and
2 took the votes away?
3 A. Yes.
4 THE COMMISSIONER: And you remember what happened in the
5 time between the first policeman leaving and the other
6 policeman coming back? There was a gap when the first
7 lot of policemen went away, there was a gap of some time
8 and then the police came back again to collect the
9 envelopes.
10 A. Yes.
11 Q. What happened in the gap between the two?
12 A. Within 20 to 30 minutes the police come back again, and
13 then they took a long, long time asking us questions,
14 approximately two hours. So time is only between 20
15 minutes and 30 minutes. After that, we just answered
16 questions for a long, long time. That is all that
17 happens. Then the officers took the votes away.
18 THE COMMISSIONER: Mr Sukul, do you wish to explore with
19 this witness these two matters? Matter one is the
20 police records undoubtedly give this gentleman's name
21 and address as being present.
22 MR SUKUL: Yes, sir.
23 THE COMMISSIONER: Matter two is that a police officer gave
24 a description of someone and later identified that
25 person as Councillor Afzal.
68
1 MR SUKUL: Indeed.
2 THE COMMISSIONER: Do you wish to explore that at all?
3 MR SUKUL: Only briefly.
4 Mr Hussain, do you remember giving your name and
5 your address? What address did you give to the police
6 that night?
7 A. Well, my address is 113 Cherry Orchard Road. The police
8 officer took my full details and also my date of birth
9 as well.
10 Q. This event took place on 8th June and I was hoping to
11 bring some archives. That is the height of the summer,
12 is it not?
13 A. Sorry?
14 Q. It was in the middle of the summer?
15 A. Yes.
16 Q. And you are in your brother's office, right?
17 A. Yes.
18 Q. You are taking refreshments, you intend to spend some
19 time there?
20 A. You see, that is our office and we have a drink always.
21 Q. Fine, fine.
22 A. There is nothing --
23 Q. You are relaxing on the settee, yes?
24 A. Yes.
25 Q. You will have taken your jacket off, right, like that?
69
1 A. No.
2 Q. And people would have been able to see your physique,
3 your body?
4 A. This is what I am. People can see me.
5 Q. Could you please help me by standing up? Just remove
6 your jacket so that -- right. That is the kind of size
7 that you had?
8 A. Yes.
9 Q. At the time?
10 A. Maybe a few pounds up and down. I do not have proper
11 scales always to weigh myself.
12 Q. But of course the beard was a little bit fuller at that
13 time than it is now, was it not? Because it is nicely
14 shaped.
15 THE COMMISSIONER: I think, Mr Sukul, that you are not
16 necessarily exploring anything that is of value at the
17 moment.
18 MR SUKUL: Either way, your evidence is that Mr Afzal was
19 not present.
20 A. I said I did not see Mr Afzal at all. So how can you
21 say that at that time.
22 Q. Were you there yourself?
23 A. Yes, I am there, and I open the warehouse with the key,
24 and I left when the second time the police arrived.
25 Then we locked the doors then went home.
70
1 Q. You did not make an arrangement for someone to give your
2 name and address to the police, did you?
3 A. The police officers have to prove you that. My BMW was
4 there and the police always check and they took my
5 details fully with my date of birth, so what else...
6 MR SUKUL: Thank you.
7 MR DE MELLO: May I just mention one thing as a result of
8 your very careful way of putting it to Mr Sukul. These
9 proceedings are partly inquisitorial. I was careful
10 with the former witness to follow questions following
11 your questions.
12 THE COMMISSIONER: If anything I have asked puts you at
13 a disadvantage you may certainly pick it up in
14 cross-examination.
15 MR DE MELLO: What I would like is this: some sort of
16 indication that if you were to draw any inference, and
17 I will be careful not to say too much in case Mr Sukul
18 bounces up.
19 THE COMMISSIONER: I simply wish to give Mr Sukul the
20 opportunity to raise a matter with the witness in case
21 it needed to be raised later. I myself have no views at
22 all at this stage, but one of the things that clearly
23 crossed my mind as a possibility, which had I been in
24 Mr Sukul's position I would have considered, it
25 therefore seemed to me to be a fair wind to ensure,
71
1 particularly in view of unhappy events with Mr Mirza
2 Ahmed, to make sure that absolutely everything was on
3 the table, unlike the ballots, face up.
4 Mr Hayes, any re-examination?
5 MR HAYES: Life is too short, sir.
6 THE COMMISSIONER: Thank you very much, Mr Tariq Hussain.
7 I think before we see the last member of the family,
8 we will have a break. It is now just short of midday.
9 Shall we say ten past 12.
10 (12.00 pm)
11 (A short break)
12 (12.10 pm)
13 MR HAYES: Sir, before I call Mr Wahid Najib, there is
14 something that my learned friend has asked me to do.
15 THE COMMISSIONER: Which learned friend?
16 MR HAYES: Mr Sukul. Yesterday I made a rather flippant
17 remark and it concerned Mrs Mir. I thought she had
18 invited me to dinner to prove that Aston was such
19 a wonderful place. Evidently she did not. So I
20 apologise unreservedly to Mrs Mir and I hope she accepts
21 that.
22 THE COMMISSIONER: You did not turn up with a bunch of
23 flowers, I trust?
24 I think, Mrs Mir, it was a joke that misfired. He is
25 duly reproved.
72
1 MR HAYES: I would like to call Mr Wahid Najib, please.
2 MR WAHID NAJIB (sworn)
3 Examination-in-chief by MR HAYES
4 MR HAYES: You are Wahid Najib.
5 A. That is correct.
6 Q. And your address is what we have before us.
7 A. That is correct.
8 Q. Could you turn to the last page of that statement. Have
9 you signed it?
10 A. Yes.
11 Q. What date did you sign it on?
12 A. Two days ago.
13 Q. Just before your signature there is a statement of
14 truth:
15 "I believe that the facts stated in this witness
16 statement are true."
17 A. That is correct.
18 Q. Are they true?
19 A. Yes, they are.
20 Q. This is what you say:
21 "I, Wahid Najib, age 24, of 75 Birch Road East
22 Wrylie Industrial Estate, Witton, Birmingham, will state
23 as follows:
24 "Well after 11.30 pm I got a phone call from my dad,
25 Mohammed Najib. He said to get to the warehouse and
73
1 meet him there, so I got in my car, a black Lexus, and
2 just went there. My uncle Tariq Hussain was already
3 there and my father arrived shortly afterwards.
4 We opened the warehouse and went to my dad's office.
5 We were joined by Mr Zulfikar Khan, Mohammed Islam and
6 Mohammed Kazi. We were all sitting in the office and
7 I offered everyone soft drinks. Then a bag was emptied
8 on to the table, containing a lot of sealed envelopes,
9 but I also saw a few large A4 sized envelopes open.
10 "Mohammed Islam wanted to go back to the office,
11 so my father offered a lift. Then after a few minutes
12 they came back with two WPCs. The first thing they did
13 was to take full details: name, date of birth and
14 address. They told us not to move or touch anything nor
15 to speak in our own language. Then three other officers
16 arrived, including the sergeant. They asked us several
17 questions about the envelopes and then decided to test
18 one sample. I remember very clearly the reason they
19 only took one sample was because they did not want to
20 spoil the other votes. The officers went to check the
21 sample. At the same time, they offered to give Mohammed
22 Islam a lift.
23 "Two WPCs remained with us. Shortly after, the
24 officers arrived back, satisfied, and then all the
25 officers left. At this stage Mohammed Amin Kazi also
74
1 left.
2 "I believe the facts stated in this witness
3 statement are true."
4 Would you be kind enough to wait there, there will
5 be some questions for you.
6 Cross-examination by MR DE MELLO
7 MR DE MELLO: Firstly, in paragraph 3 of your statement, you
8 said the WPC took the full details: name, date of birth
9 and address.
10 A. That is correct.
11 Q. That is right? Next, could you please turn to page 606.
12 This is a statement that starts at 605 of a WPC Grundy.
13 Yes? I am going to read out to you a couple of
14 paragraphs and ask you some questions.
15 First, can you turn to paragraph 9:
16 "Both myself and WPC Bradley made notes of the
17 individuals present."
18 Do you recall that?
19 A. Yes, I do.
20 Q. What I want to ask you is this: did she speak to each
21 and every individual who was there present?
22 A. Yes, she did.
23 Q. And did she ask each and every individual his name?
24 A. Yes, she did.
25 Q. Date of birth?
75
1 A. Yes.
2 Q. And address?
3 A. Yes.
4 Q. What you have told us is that your father Mohammed Najib
5 was there, your uncle Tariq Hussain was there, Zulfikar
6 Khan, Mohammed Islam and Mohammed Kazi, yes?
7 A. Yes.
8 Q. And was it in your hearing that this officer asked each
9 individual their name and address?
10 A. Yes.
11 Q. I want to be absolutely sure that Councillor Afzal was
12 not there. Please tell us, was he there or not?
13 A. No.
14 Q. Secondly, can you please tell us whether you had seen
15 Councillor Afzal at about 11, 11.30 that evening?
16 A. No.
17 MR DE MELLO: Thank you.
18 MR BROOK: No questions.
19 MR COPPEL: No questions sir.
20 THE COMMISSIONER: Mr Sukul?
21 Cross-examination by MR SUKUL
22 MR SUKUL: Sir.
23 Mr Najib, good afternoon to you. Just one or two,
24 maybe three or four, or depending on what you say, five
25 or six questions. Depending on what the court says,
76
1 seven or eight.
2 In any event I just want to take you, as you have it
3 in front of you, to your statement, paragraph 1.
4 You have read paragraph 1. My trusted and learned
5 friend has read it as well. But you make it clear,
6 do you not, in paragraph 1 that your father telephoned
7 you at about 11, after 11.30, and he said this, "Get to
8 the warehouse and meet me there."
9 That is what you have written, is it not?
10 A. Yes.
11 Q. You do not say in that paragraph that your father asked
12 you to bring the keys, do you?
13 A. No.
14 Q. That is because your father did not ask you to bring the
15 keys, did he?
16 A. He just said come to the warehouse.
17 Q. That is all he said?
18 A. Yes, come to the warehouse.
19 Q. Right. If I call my son, who is substantially younger
20 than you are -- indeed you obeyed your father because
21 he is your father?
22 A. That is correct.
23 Q. Well, did he give you a reason why he wanted you to
24 attend the warehouse that night?
25 A. No.
77
1 Q. He just said "Come to the warehouse" and you take your
2 pyjamas off, put your gear on, start the BMW, go to the
3 warehouse?
4 A. No, I have a Lexus car.
5 Q. You go into the black Lexus?
6 A. Yes.
7 Q. You are very familiar with that warehouse, are you not?
8 A. I have been working there for 15 years.
9 Q. Then you would know that --
10 THE COMMISSIONER: Since you were nine?
11 A. Yes, hard labour.
12 MR SUKUL: You had a very serious face when you said that
13 you were working there since nine but that is a matter
14 for you and your father.
15 What you do know is that there are some good
16 security arrangements at the warehouse. Let me show you
17 a photograph of the security arrangements and I will ask
18 you to comment on them.
19 THE COMMISSIONER: Behind you there should be a file number
20 3. Is that where we will find the photographs?
21 MR SUKUL: Yes. You are right, 703.
22 THE COMMISSIONER: Is that the entrance to the estate?
23 A. One of the entrances, yes.
24 THE COMMISSIONER: There seems to be a security office.
25 A. That is correct.
78
1 THE COMMISSIONER: With a day time and night time telephone
2 number. Is that manned at night?
3 A. After 8 o'clock.
4 THE COMMISSIONER: So there will be somebody in there.
5 A. Yes.
6 MR SUKUL: It is fair then, would you say, young Mr Najib,
7 that on the night in question there would have been some
8 kind of security personnel in that --
9 A. There would be one person there, yes.
10 Q. Okay. Then I need to ask you about this: the court has
11 heard that you were present at the warehouse that night
12 because you drove the Lexus there?
13 A. Yes.
14 Q. And it is right that you were present in the room when
15 the police came and so on?
16 A. That is correct, yes.
17 Q. Just staying with the police, you told my learned friend
18 Mr De Mello that you heard the police ask each person to
19 give their name and give their address?
20 A. That is correct, yes.
21 Q. The police did not say to you words to the effect, "Your
22 name is Wahid Najib" -- you would have said yes?
23 A. Yes.
24 Q. Did the police officer ask any one of you present to
25 produce any kind of ID to prove you are who you say are?
79
1 A. No.
2 Q. And then, Mr Najib, you remember your father's long
3 table in his office?
4 A. His office table, yes.
5 Q. And it is true, is it not, that there were some votes or
6 papers on that table?
7 A. There were sealed envelopes, yes.
8 Q. Sealed envelopes?
9 A. Yes.
10 Q. No yellow ballot papers?
11 A. No.
12 Q. If I read to you from five statements, which I do not
13 want to, but the police, five of them said there were,
14 what do you say?
15 A. There was not any. There were only sealed envelopes.
16 Q. Other than the envelopes, what other documents were
17 there?
18 A. It is my dad's office, so it --
19 Q. On the table.
20 A. I cannot recall. All I remember is there were sealed
21 envelopes, there must have been some of my dad's office
22 papers, and there was a big thing there, an architect
23 picture of a new building, which covered half the table.
24 It is still there now. That was it. It covered half
25 the table.
80
1 Q. Fair enough, it is just that I suggest to you that on
2 that table there were open yellow ballot papers. Would
3 you like me to show you one? I can ask my learned
4 friend to help me.
5 A. You can show me, but there were not any anyway.
6 Q. Do you know what a ballot paper looks like?
7 A. I never have filled one in. I do not know what it looks
8 like.
9 Q. So how do you know ballot papers were not there?
10 A. There are only envelopes there, so if there are papers
11 there, you can see ...
12 Q. You see, young Mr Najib, it is true, is it not, that
13 you were asked to tell this court that you could not see
14 any ballot papers. That is not true? Somebody asked
15 you to tell us that?
16 A. That is not true. I have a mind of my own. I am
17 24 years old so I know what I saw on that day.
18 Q. If you have a mind of your own, why did you not ask your
19 father, "Father, why should I go to the warehouse at
20 midnight"?
21 A. He left something there, the alarm could have gone off.
22 All you do is get the keys, drive. If you start asking
23 too many questions, what can happen?
24 Q. I suggest you went there to give a hand and fill in
25 those yellow ballot papers. Is that not the case?
81
1 A. No, I went there. Three people have to go there to open
2 the warehouse, like we normally do. That is my job.
3 Q. You told the court that a security guard, a hefty
4 security guard is in that security place with the bars
5 at the window --
6 A. Have you seen the security guard?
7 Q. Young Mr Najib, it is for me to ask the question and you
8 to answer them.
9 A. I do not think so.
10 THE COMMISSIONER: I think the question was intended
11 rhetorically, Mr Sukul.
12 MR SUKUL: I take the point, sir.
13 At any rate, you would accept that you are just
14 a small framed chap, are you not? Last year you would
15 have been even more tiny than you are now?
16 A. I think I have lost a bit of weight.
17 THE COMMISSIONER: He looks a pretty fit young man to me,
18 Mr Sukul. I do not think this is a very profitable line
19 of questioning.
20 MR SUKUL: Let us go back to the table.
21 THE COMMISSIONER: You have put your case, Mr Sukul.
22 MR SUKUL: How many of these sealed envelopes did you count?
23 A. None.
24 Q. None at all?
25 A. No.
82
1 Q. Nobody asked you to help count them?
2 A. It was late at night, I was feeling quite drowsy.
3 I wanted to go home.
4 Q. Did anybody not ask you, "Here is a pile of envelopes,
5 sealed envelopes. Can you count the sealed envelopes
6 and mark it"?
7 A. No.
8 Q. You must have put them in a pile of 25 with a rubber
9 band around it?
10 A. No.
11 Q. You did not do that?
12 A. No.
13 Q. You were not asked to do that?
14 A. No.
15 Q. You see, the case is this: you were asked by your father
16 to come to the warehouse in the middle of the night to
17 help them to forge these votes, were you not?
18 A. No.
19 Q. You had nothing to do with the keys to let the people
20 into that warehouse?
21 A. I opened the -- my uncle opened the warehouse. I had
22 a set of keys but he opened the warehouse.
23 Q. You had a set of keys, but you did not take them?
24 A. He offered to open the warehouse and the bigger person
25 normally opens it.
83
1 Q. The case is this: you got to the warehouse, you sat
2 there and helped to fill in some yellow ballot papers
3 which you told the court you had not seen?
4 A. That is not correct.
5 Q. Tell me about Mr Afzal. You know him well, do you not?
6 A. Not really, no. I know him, but not well, I would say.
7 Q. You have a great deal of respect for him because he is
8 elder than you are, and the tradition tells you that?
9 A. He has been an Aston councillor for the last 20-odd
10 years so you have to have respect for a man like that.
11 Q. So much so that you are prepared to conceal the fact
12 that he was present in the warehouse that night, are you
13 not?
14 A. No, he was not there. I would not lie in court to
15 anyone.
16 Q. He was not in the room, is that what you are saying?
17 A. No, he was not.
18 Q. You searched the warehouse that night looking for
19 Councillor Afzal?
20 A. If he was there the alarm would have gone off, so end of
21 story, he was not there.
22 Q. That is what you were told to say?
23 A. No, that is what I am telling you.
24 Q. You saw these yellow votes face up so you can see the
25 crosses?
84
1 A. No.
2 Q. That night you sat up to assist those with you, the
3 forged votes and manufacture of illegal votes, Mr Najib?
4 A. No.
5 Q. That is what happened, is it not?
6 A. No.
7 MR SUKUL: Well, I shall trouble you no further.
8 A. Thank you.
9 THE COMMISSIONER: Thank you very much, you are free to go
10 as are your other two witnesses. Apart from your
11 witnesses --
12 MR HAYES: That is the end of my witnesses.
13 I have spoken to my learned friend, Mr Sukul, about
14 all these witnesses to do with personation and forgery.
15 He is quite content that I read them. In my respectful
16 submission --
17 THE COMMISSIONER: Do you wish me to read them and you put
18 copies at the top for anyone who wants them?
19 MR HAYES: Yes.
20 THE COMMISSIONER: In that case --
21 MR HAYES: May it read into the record what it is about?
22 THE COMMISSIONER: Indeed you may, yes.
23 Reading of Witness Statements by MR HAYES
24 MR HAYES: If I just read the first statement and then the
25 second statement, it makes sense.
85
1 THE COMMISSIONER: The first statement I have is A Rahim.
2 MR HAYES: This is Mr Rahim, and he says:
3 "I, A Rahim of 267 Frederick Road Aston, Birmingham,
4 will say as follows.
5 "I was helping Mr Mohammed Nazrul Islam when he was
6 canvassing for election held on 10th June 2004. During
7 that time I can confirm that both of us, together with
8 Mr Faruk Miah, 87 Hanover Close, Aston, Birmingham B6
9 6ES, attended upon the following."
10 THE COMMISSIONER: Then there is a list of eight names.
11 MR HAYES: "On each of these occasions, as I was known to
12 the voters better than Mr Islam and Mr Faruk Miah, I was
13 asked to act as a witness on the declaration of identity
14 forms. As I cannot write proper English, I therefore
15 asked Mr Islam to complete my name and address which he
16 did accordingly. I then signed the form myself.
17 However, due to an oversight on my part I failed to sign
18 in the case of DOI 960, 961, 962.
19 "I believe the contents of my statement, which has
20 been properly interpreted to me by Mr Siraj Udwalla, of
21 215 Frederick Road, Aston, are true."
22 "I, Siraj Udwalla, of 215 Frederick Road, Aston
23 Birmingham, believe that I have properly translated this
24 statement."
25 Both signed on 5th March of this year.
86
1 It is exactly the same for Mr Ashab. Exactly the
2 same for Miah, one for Miah. It deals with --
3 THE COMMISSIONER: Just to make sure I have them all. After
4 Rahim the next one I have is Mohammed Ashraf of Emscote
5 Road. The next one I have is Rahima Choudhry.
6 MR HAYES: No, sir. You do have that.
7 THE COMMISSIONER: That should be further down the pile,
8 should it? The next one after that, put that to one
9 side, is Boshir Miah of Bromfield Close.
10 The next one I have is Rushnara Begum, I assume she
11 is further down the list. I then have Sujon Miah
12 Choudhry. Should that be the next one?
13 MR HAYES: No. What I have done, sir, is dealt with every
14 single person who --
15 THE COMMISSIONER: In which case I may have got these
16 slightly shuffled, although because I have not actually
17 looked at them they were shuffled before delivery.
18 MR HAYES: You will not have Mr Ali because we have heard
19 evidence that Mr Ali is out of the country and unwell.
20 THE COMMISSIONER: I have a statement from a Faruk Miah of
21 Hanover Close. I have a Kala Miah of Sutton Street. He
22 should be the next one? He or she. Kala Miah of Sutton
23 Street. Who should my next one be?
24 MR HAYES: You have dealt with Mohammed Ashab, have you not?
25 THE COMMISSIONER: Yes, he was number 2 on the list.
87
1 MR HAYES: That deals with the schedule of allegations
2 in relation to personation and forgery against those
3 named people, with one exception of Mr Ali. Obviously
4 I did not deal with Mr Islam because you cannot
5 personate yourself.
6 THE COMMISSIONER: Not easily.
7 MR HAYES: The other statements that you have, I will read
8 one of those as a sample. These are the people that
9 you have just heard from attended upon.
10 MR SUKUL: Sir, may I just clarify this, could I enquire
11 that my friend has completed the statements favourable
12 to Mr Islam?
13 MR HAYES: I have not finished yet.
14 THE COMMISSIONER: I have a number of statements. Which one
15 would you like to read?
16 MR HAYES: Rahina Sultana Choudhry, 7 Dolman Road, Aston.
17 "I did vote Labour at the election for one to three
18 candidates. I understand that the validity of my vote
19 is now being called into question. I do not know why
20 that is the case, but it was a genuine vote entered into
21 without any pressure or undue influence being applied
22 upon me. There has been no bribery either. I attach
23 a copy of my signed declaration of identity which
24 I confirm has been signed by me and is in fact genuine."
25 Then at the bottom:
88
1 "I, Mr Siraj Udwalla, of 215 Frederick Road, Aston,
2 believe that I have properly translated this statement."
3 And enclosed is the application to vote by post that
4 she refers to, after that the declaration of identity,
5 and then we go through all those people saying exactly
6 the same thing.
7 THE COMMISSIONER: Yes. They do all say the same thing,
8 including saying for one to three candidates. Very
9 well.
10 Who would you like me to put second in the pile?
11 MR HAYES: It would be Boshir Miah of 62 Bromfield Close.
12 We can paginate it for you.
13 THE COMMISSIONER: Let me hand this back to you, you can
14 paginate this over the adjournment. I will then read
15 those as part of my reading, as it were.
16 MR HAYES: I am greatly obliged.
17 Apart from the handwriting evidence, that is really
18 our case.
19 THE COMMISSIONER: Mr De Mello?
20 MR DE MELLO: I propose to call Councillor Afzal. I have
21 not made an opening, I do not propose to make an
22 opening, but I certainly propose to make a closing at
23 some appropriate time with a skeleton argument.
24 THE COMMISSIONER: I would be grateful if you did.
25 MR SUKUL: Sir, I am really sorry to bother you. A little
89
1 confusion has crept in. I have a bundle of papers in my
2 hand here. There were two bundles that my friend
3 Mr Hayes has actually served. He read samples from the
4 first bundle but this bundle here applies to a different
5 part of the case.
6 THE COMMISSIONER: He read a sample from that as well.
7 MR SUKUL: I need to make the point that if he is seeking to
8 admit this bundle, this bundle is referrable only to
9 that mystery A person.
10 THE COMMISSIONER: Mystery A or mystery B?
11 MR SUKUL: Mystery B is the first set of samples that you
12 read. These ones here contained in the papers that he
13 is seeking to have admitted, to which I raise no
14 objection, I simply --
15 THE COMMISSIONER: You are just putting down a marker that
16 they relate to mystery A. Mr Hayes agrees with that.
17 MR SUKUL: I have some concerns here because of course
18 Mr Hayes does not purport to represent mystery A, or
19 does he?
20 THE COMMISSIONER: I think he may wish to make
21 representations about mystery A and as to whether or not
22 the handwriting expert will take us as far as it may
23 otherwise take us.
24 MR HAYES: That is precisely right.
25 THE COMMISSIONER: I think that is the way he would put it,
90
1 Mr Sukul.
2 What I suggest you do is call Councillor Afzal, read
3 his statement, and we will have cross-examination after
4 lunch. As on the last occasion when somebody had simply
5 given his evidence-in-chief, I would not, clearly, take
6 any point about people talking over the short
7 adjournment.
8 MR DE MELLO: I was hoping that.
9 THE COMMISSIONER: Councillor, if you could take the oath
10 please.
11 MR MUHAMMAD AFZAL (sworn)
12 Examination-in-chief by MR DE MELLO
13 MR DE MELLO: You are Councillor Muhammad Afzal of 30
14 Beaudasert Road, Handsworth Wood, Birmingham, that is
15 right?
16 A. Yes.
17 Q. In the bundle at page 564 there is an unsigned, at least
18 in my bundle, an unsigned witness statement and I ask
19 you to turn to that and I will provide copies of the
20 signed statement. I am told the original signed
21 statement should have been lodged with the court but
22 I will let you have a signed one.
23 THE COMMISSIONER: Is that a photocopy?
24 MR DE MELLO: Yes.
25 THE COMMISSIONER: If you show the photocopy to -- there is
91
1 an original somewhere?
2 MR DE MELLO: I am told.
3 Mr Sukul, do you want a signed one?
4 A. I have a signed copy.
5 THE COMMISSIONER: Councillor Afzal is ahead of us. What is
6 it dated?
7 A. 14th February 2005.
8 THE COMMISSIONER: Mr De Mello will read your statement to
9 you, Mr Afzal.
10 MR DE MELLO: "I Muhammad Afzal will say as follows.
11 "1. I am the second respondent in the election
12 petition brought to challenge the result of my election
13 as councillor for the Aston Ward in the
14 City of Birmingham. I am married with five children
15 aged between 7 and 21 years old. I am 60 years old and
16 was born on 8th February 1945. I was born in Pakistan.
17 "2. I was first elected to Council in the Aston
18 Ward in May 1982. By profession I am an accountant. I
19 worked in the Birmingham area with a firm of accountants
20 from March 1970 until July 1980. I then set up my own
21 business called VG Discount Stores, a supermarket.
22 I then sold this business. Effectively, since 1985,
23 I have been a full-time councillor of Birmingham City
24 Council.
25 "3. I am a senior member of the City of Birmingham
92
1 Council and have had cabinet responsibilities for
2 equalities and human resources from January 2000
3 to June 2004. I acted as leader of Birmingham City
4 Council on several occasions in the leader's absence
5 between May 1994 to May 1998. I have been councillor
6 for Aston Ward since 1982 to the present time. I have
7 been chairman of the General Purposes Committee
8 from May 1996 to May 1998. I have been chair of the
9 Personnel Committee from May 1992 to May 1996. I have
10 been chair of the Urban Renewal Committee from May 1986
11 to May 1991. I was chair of the Small Heath Area
12 Subcommittee from May 1984 to May 1994. I have been
13 a director of the Birmingham International Airport for
14 several years. I was a non-executive director of North
15 Birmingham Mental Health Trust from November 1997
16 to March 2003. I am chairman of the National
17 Association of Black, Asian and Ethnic Minority
18 Councillors. I have been a member of the Executive
19 Council of the Muslim Council of Great Britain."
20 Are there any additional qualifications that
21 you have?
22 A. Well, I have been adviser to the English Sports Council
23 on equality issues. I am a member of the Euro Cities
24 Network and I am a member of the social committee.
25 This network consists of about 150 European cities.
93
1 Q. I think even Mr Sukul will be impressed by the list of
2 qualifications that you have. Moving on to 4:
3 "From my CV it can be seen that I have contested no
4 less than seven elections, being successful in all of
5 them. I have gained very considerable experience of
6 campaigning and am well aware of the regulations and
7 legal obligations of being a candidate.
8 "5. The elections were due to be held on
9 10th June 2004. These were combined elections, the
10 local government elections being held on the same date
11 as the European Parliamentary elections. All applicants
12 who wished to be selected as Labour candidates had first
13 to apply to the Labour Party to be on the local
14 government panel. These interviews were conducted in or
15 about autumn 2003. I was successful in my interviews
16 and put on the panel. Normally on an annual basis there
17 a 1/3 election. However, following the local government
18 boundary changes, the whole Council was being re-elected
19 in June 2004. 120 candidates were contesting the
20 election in 40 wards.
21 "6. A grid was prepared by the West Midlands
22 Regional Labour Party. The grid was intended to assist
23 in selecting the best and most appropriate candidates
24 across the wards, taking into account sitting
25 councillors' preferences and gender and ethnic balance
94
1 with each ward. This was subject to the approval of the
2 local Labour Party members, in my case Aston, by
3 two-thirds majority. If the members of a ward rejected
4 the grid's proposal for their own ward, then a normal
5 selection would take place and candidates would then be
6 selected on a simple majority. In practice, what
7 occurred in my case was a confirmation made of my
8 selection and those of my fellow candidates, Mr Amin
9 Kazi and Mr Nazrul Islam in April 2004.
10 "7. Aston Ward has a voting population of 17,500,
11 which contains a substantial ethnic minority. Among
12 this number the predominant religion is Muslim. It is
13 mainly made of up Pakistani/Kashmiri and Bangladeshi
14 communities together with people of Indian origin.
15 There is also a clear pattern that the ethnic minorities
16 tend to have a higher turnout than the normal non-ethnic
17 population.
18 "8. The grid candidates were made of myself of
19 Pakistani extraction, Mr Kazi of Indian extraction and
20 Mr Islam of Bangladeshi extraction. Nazrul Islam was
21 the first Bangladeshi candidate from the Labour Party in
22 Birmingham. The Bangladeshi community is a substantial
23 one and it was felt by that community and the
24 Labour Party that it should be represented, if at all
25 possible, on the council.
95
1 "9. Between May 1982 and May 2003, there were
2 always three Labour councillors. In May 2003, due to
3 the Iraq War, some of the Muslim voters voted against
4 the Labour Party and a Liberal Democrat candidate,
5 Mr Ayoub Khan, was elected. Mr Tony Kennedy and I were
6 the other two councillors.
7 "10. After the election of the Labour candidates,
8 we began to meet informally. I saw a lot of Mr Kazi as
9 we were on the council together. Mr Kazi has been
10 a councillor for the last ten years. We discussed how
11 to campaign and who would be our agent and we
12 consequently then approached the chairman of Aston
13 branch to be our agent, Amjad Hussain. We asked
14 Mr Zulfikar Khan to be our ward organiser.
15 "11. Through our contacts we heard rumours that the
16 Liberal Democrats were collecting postal vote
17 applications and had been doing so since January 2004.
18 We then approached some of our Labour contacts who told
19 us that they had already given their application to vote
20 forms to the Liberal Democrats. In some cases when we
21 approached them, they said that even though they had
22 voted for me for years, they had promised to vote
23 Liberal Democrat and as they had got there first they
24 intended not to change their vote.
25 "12. I was also aware that postal voting had first
96
1 become an important factor in the Aston elections at the
2 2002 election when a person known as Naim Ahmed, who had
3 formerly been in the Labour Party but stood as an
4 independent, had obtained 700 postal votes. He was now
5 a Liberal Democrat candidate for 2004 so being aware of
6 his skill in obtaining postal votes, we decided to
7 encourage people to use the postal vote system as part
8 of our campaign. This was in addition to the fact that
9 our own supporters could not always be guaranteed to
10 vote in a safe Labour seat as they might not be prepared
11 to make the effort of turning up at the polling station
12 and this could make a difference.
13 "13. We decided, due to a language barrier, that
14 it would be best if Mr Islam campaigned among the
15 Bengali population, if Mr Kazi dealt with those of
16 Indian extraction mostly from the area which had formed
17 part of the previous Handsworth Ward and if I dealt with
18 the Pakistani/Kashmiri population. I think this was
19 done at around the end of April.
20 "14. It is worth mentioning that as a senior member
21 of the cabinet in the City of Birmingham, I met with
22 community leaders and elders to encourage them to vote
23 Labour and to explain the rationale behind the Labour
24 Party's support for the Iraq War, which had troubled a
25 considerable section of the Muslin community.
97
1 "15. We did not have a campaign office at this
2 stage; we all operated from our homes. I obtained my
3 own application to vote form from the elections office
4 and made my own copies. Quite independently of the
5 other two, I then approached voters who I knew were
6 Labour supporters and persuaded them to apply for a
7 postal vote. If they requested them I would then give
8 copies usually to the head of the household, sometimes
9 to women as well. It was a mixture: in some
10 cases I would see the forms filled in, signed and given
11 back to me; in others I left the forms there for the
12 voters to send in directly to the Elections Office.
13 In some cases, I left forms with a household and
14 arranged to come back to collect them to forward on
15 to the Elections Office myself.
16 "16. I do not recall receiving or seeing a postal
17 vote issue list from the Elections Office at this stage.
18 Once I learned (about the end of May) that postal votes
19 were being sent out, I therefore contacted either by
20 telephone or by making a personal visit, those people
21 who had actually promised me that that they would
22 use their postal vote to vote Labour. I would ask if
23 they had received their postal vote. If they said
24 'yes', I would ask if they needed any help. Most people
25 would say 'no' as there was a leaflet saying what to do.
98
1 In very few cases I witnessed the voter's signature.
2 I think I witnessed no more than about a dozen voters'
3 signatures.
4 "17. In addition to myself, I had other workers
5 assisting me, about nine or ten in total, but we never
6 canvassed all together at the same time. Some were
7 business people helping now and then. Some were
8 Labour Party members and some did not live in the Aston
9 ward. Sometimes one or more of them would canvass with
10 me, but more often than not they also canvassed on their
11 own. Some of them collected and witnessed postal votes,
12 but I do not believe that any of them witnessed more
13 than a few each, not within my knowledge at least.
14 "18. I deny any wrongdoing whatsoever on my part
15 in the election campaign. I did not commit personation
16 or any election offences of any kind. I neither
17 consented to nor knew about any such practice
18 being carried out by any person for the benefit of the
19 Labour Party candidates.
20 "19. It is important to refer to a major incident
21 with a postbox. A postbox in the Washwood Heath area
22 was burnt down, which it was understood had a lot of
23 postal votes in it at the time, according to the local
24 press. As a result of that, everybody became nervous of
25 putting postal votes in postboxes and handed them in to
99
1 the elections office, which had indicated that in view
2 of the incident, it was quite happy to receive the
3 postal votes by hand.
4 "20. We opened a campaign office in May off the
5 Witton Road, the main road in Aston. We used to meet
6 there most evenings. Because the office became
7 well-known in the area, all the helpers used to
8 congregate there. The supporters used to bring their
9 individually collected postal votes to the office rather
10 take them or send them by post to the Elections Office
11 following the fire incident. We then used to deliver
12 these postal votes by hand to the Elections Office
13 during office hours. I never witnessed nor saw an open
14 postal vote in the office.
15 "21. On Tuesday 8th June 2004, two days before
16 the election, I was campaigning as normal. At about 8
17 to 8.30 pm, I went to an informal meeting of Indian
18 Muslims at the request of Councillor Kazi to discuss the
19 Labour Government's actions affecting Muslims both at
20 home and abroad. I believe I left the meeting between
21 about 10 or 10.30. Councillor Kazi was still there when
22 I left. I was not feeling very well that day so I drove
23 straight home and went to bed after taking a hot drink
24 and some medication."
25 Pausing there, at that time, were you suffering from
100
1 any kind of illness or did you undergo any kind of
2 surgery?
3 A. I had a heart operation on 21st May. For about
4 a fortnight (?) I was (inaudible) hospital, which is
5 known sometimes as City Road Hospital.
6 Q. I have given my learned friend, sir, a copy of a report
7 from Dr Varma, consultant cardiologist. It is not
8 referred to in the statement. I seek leave to introduce
9 it and a couple of other documents.
10 THE COMMISSIONER: I think the answer is: introduce those
11 documents and then I think we will break. Otherwise
12 we will be going on rather a long time. If you just put
13 those documents in, I assume that there is no objection
14 to my receiving them.
15 MR DE MELLO: I have not received any acknowledgment from
16 Mr Sukul, but I have spoken to his solicitors.
17 THE COMMISSIONER: Is it a medical report?
18 MR DE MELLO: It is.
19 MR SUKUL: Sir, I have no objections to the document being
20 read.
21 MR DE MELLO: Do you have a copy of that yourself, Mr Afzal?
22 A. No.
23 THE COMMISSIONER: It looks as if I have the original.
24 MR DE MELLO: You do have the original.
25 For the purposes of the record we have stopped at
101
1 paragraph 21.
2 THE COMMISSIONER: Thank you. Shall we say 2 o'clock.
3 (1.00 pm)
4 (The Short Adjournment)
5 (2.00 pm)
6 MR DE MELLO: For the purposes of the record I stopped at
7 paragraph 21 and I handed you a letter, which is dated
8 28th February 2005 from Doctor Varma.
9 "22. At about 9 o'clock in the next morning, I was
10 telephoned by Amjad Hussain, the Labour Party
11 candidates' election agent. He began describing an
12 incident involving the police at a warehouse which I had
13 already known to be owned by Mr Najib. I asked
14 Mr Hussain to come to my house and explain in detail
15 what had happened. I had not been involved in the
16 decision to take postal ballot envelopes to the
17 warehouse the night before, nor had I been aware of the
18 storage of postal ballot envelopes anywhere outside the
19 campaign office. After listening to him, I called
20 Sir Albert Bore and told him what I had learned. I also
21 rang the Queens Road Police Station and wanted to speak
22 to the superintendent but he was not available. I then
23 recall that I went with Amjad Hussain to see him at the
24 police station at little before noon that same day. We
25 informed him about the incident on the previous evening.
102
1 He was not aware of the incident but he said to us that
2 if we were to wait outside then he would find out.
3 After waiting for some time, he came back and said
4 a complaint had been made and officers went to
5 investigate but they were satisfied that there was no
6 evidence of any wrongdoing.
7 "In the afternoon of 9th June 2004, in the Newtown
8 area, whilst out