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Police ‘capitulated to Islamists’ by banning Israeli Maccabi fans from Europa game | Politics | News


Police chiefs “capitulated to Islamists” after banning Israeli football fans from attending a game in England because armed local extremists wanted to hunt them down, Kemi Badenoch declared.

The Tory leader also said West Midlands Police “collaborated with them to cover it up” as Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood faced growing calls to sack Chief Constable Craig Guildford.

The force was told, 16 days before the match, that it was wrong to ban supporters from attending the Europa League fixture. West Midlands Police initially claimed away fans could not attend because of hooliganism fears, with 500 “hardcore Maccabi supporters” who were “very well organised, uncooperative and militaristic” accused of carrying out “indiscriminate attacks on Muslim taxi drivers, flag burning, marches and Islamophobic chanting”.

But, in a bombshell report published on Tuesday, West Midlands Police admitted it actually feared locals were plotting to attack Israeli supporters, with some even preparing to carry weapons.

Tory leader Kemi Badenoch declared: “West Midlands Police capitulated to Islamists and then collaborated with them to cover it up.

“They knew extremists were planning to attack Jews for going to a football match, and their response was to blame and remove Jewish people instead. They presented an inversion of reality and misled a parliamentary committee.

“We have had enough of this in Britain. The Chief Constable’s position is untenable. The British Police serve the British public, not local sectarian interests.”

Former Home Office adviser Nick Timothy, who is also an MP from the West Midlands and supports Aston Villa, said: “What was left of the credibility of West Midlands Police has been destroyed today.

“We learned earlier that their initial reason for banning Israelis from Villa Park was the danger to away fans from ‘armed’ locals.

“But to justify the ban they portrayed the Israelis as “uniquely violent” and military-trained. They used “intelligence” supposedly from Dutch police that has been utterly repudiated – by the Dutch police and other authorities.

“And when the Home Affairs Select Committee asked why the vital information about the danger to Israelis was kept secret, the Chief Constable ludicrously said it was because he had not been asked for it.

“In other words: ‘We won’t tell you the truth because you didn’t ask a specific question about a thing you didn’t know because we hadn’t told you.’

“Yes. That was his defence.

“He is too arrogant to resign. The Home Secretary has the power to remove him under Section 40 of the Police Act 1996. She should use it.”

Lord Walney, the former independent adviser on political violence, added: “Not only did West Midlands police fabricate evidence on the supposed threat from Maccabi Tel Aviv fans ‘by mistake’, they’ve just admitted they sat on genuine intelligence that local armed gangs were preparing to attack the visiting fans.”

Mr Guildford asked for a review into the decision to ban Maccabi Tel Aviv fans amid a furious political outcry.

The probe, produced 16 days before the match, concluded that a limited number of Israeli fans should be allowed.

The report, published by the Home Affairs Select Committee, stated: “In essence, there is no preferable option, but the least worst would be away fans with a reduced allocation, or subject to ongoing discussions with Government to retain the ban on away fans.”

Maccabi had already said many of its supporters would not attend because they were concerned for their safety in Birmingham.

The report reveals that the police’s initial concern about the safety was prompted not by the behaviour of Maccabi fans but by “high-confidence intelligence” received on September 5 that “references elements of the community in West Midlands wanting to ‘arm’ themselves”.

Assistant Chief Constable Mike O’Hara said: “We got a lot of information and intelligence to suggest that people were going to actively seek out Maccabi Tel Aviv fans and would seek violence towards them.

“So we had sort of like a bubbling position locally.

“We had people purporting to be Maccabi fans online who were goading local community members and saying, ‘this is what you’re going to get’.

“This was all forming part of the heat of the situation, so based on that, the commanders tried to make the right decision.”

But Mr Guildford insisted they were not swayed by politicians.

“Two things briefly. After today, because we’ve done the same for HMIC, we’ll go through all the intelligence that we’ve got, and we’ll try and do a sanitised precis of every piece of intelligence to give to you, so you can see what we had, what we were working on,” he said.

“Number two, I think that is a really important question, it’s a really important democratic question, and last time I answered that and I gave a very similar answer, from everything that I’ve read, and the commanders that I spoke to, I do not believe that there was political influence on that decision. I don’t believe that to be the case.

“I believe the information that we provided and the advice provided to the SAG and the decision making by the SAG and all those around the table in the SAG, please ask this of people that come in after us, and please get the audio of the SAG, I am sure that the SAG chair took into account what people thought.

“My personal opinion is there wasn’t any political interference.”

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