Daily Mail

Facing court, man ‘who posed with a fake AK-47 to threaten far-Right’

It’s a derelict sports stadium in ‘IRA country’, and the scene of one of the Troubles’ most barbarous murders, where two British soldiers were beaten and shot by a mob. So...

A COUNTER-protester appeared in court yesterday after allegedly using a fake AK-47 to threaten far-Right agitator Tommy Robinson and the English Defence League in a social media video.

Habeeb Khan, 49, from the Sparkbrook area of Birmingham, is accused of possessing an imitation firearm with intent to cause fear of violence to the EDL, sending threats of death or serious harm, and verbally abusing a police officer.

West Midlands Police said the charges were linked to a video ‘which was circulated on social media on Monday night’.

The video was posted on the same night that hundreds of Muslim men gathered in the Bordesley Green area of the city to confront a rumoured far-Right rally, which never materialis­ed.

In the clip, which has been viewed hundreds of thousands of times online, a masked man with his face covered says to the camera while wielding what appears to be an AK-47: ‘Hey, Tommy Robinson, you want to play rough, hey? OK, come on! You want to play rough? I’ll blow you away!’

The clip then cuts to a different angle where the man, now wearing a mixed martial arts T-shirt, can be seen slotting the ammunition clip into the firearm before turning to the camera and saying: ‘EDL, we are going to come and f ****** blow you away.’

During a brief hearing at Birmingham Magistrate­s’ Court yesterday, Khan was charged with possessing ‘an imitation firearm, namely an AK-47, with intent, by means thereof to cause the EDL, to believe that unlawful violence would be used against them’ between August 5 and August 6.

He is further charged with sending ‘a message that conveyed a threat of serious harm, namely sending a communicat­ion threatenin­g death or serious harm, intending, or being reckless as to whether, an individual encounteri­ng the message would fear that the threat would be carried out’ on the same dates.

The defendant is also accused of using abusive language with the intent to cause harassment, harm or offence to a West Midlands Police officer on August 7.

West Midlands Police had earlier said that the charge related to ‘homophobic abuse’.

Khan indicated a plea of not guilty to possession of an imitation firearm and the other two offences were sent to Birmingham Crown Court as linked.

District Judge David Wain remanded Khan in custody until his next appearance before Birmingham Crown Court on Wednesday, August 14.

‘We are going to come and blow you away’

NO MONUMENT or commemorat­ive plaque explains what happened here. There is no neatly tended memorial of fluttering flags and cut flowers, as there are in dozens of nearby spots celebratin­g the lives of dead IRA ‘volunteers’.

It would be easy to forget that behind the steel-shuttered gates and jagged glass-topped walls of the Casement Park stadium in Belfast occurred one of the most unspeakabl­e acts of bloodshed in Northern Ireland’s troubled history.

Two British soldiers who had strayed inadverten­tly into the path of a funeral were violently wrenched from their car, savagely beaten, stripped and thrown over the stadium wall with a 9 ft drop on the other side.

Then the coup de grace: they were bundled into a taxi and driven to nearby wasteland where they were shot at point blank range, sixbullets in one, five in the other.

In all the mind-numbing murder and mayhem that scars Ulster, the events of March 19, 1988, rank among the grimmest of atrocities. The more so because it all happened in plain sight.

An Army helicopter camera crew hovering at 500 ft transmitte­d what was happening in real time to police and military commanders watching in impotent fury. TV and media crews were also powerless witnesses to the attack.

As the two soldiers were dragged away to certain death, an observer recorded of one of the two: ‘He didn’t cry out; just looked at us with terrified eyes as though we were all enemies in a foreign country who wouldn’t have understood what language he was speaking if he called out for help.’

The wickedness of what happened, of a mob behaving like a pack of mad, wild dogs, was being recalled this week as a furious row erupted over the role of Sir Keir Starmer’s chief of staff, accused of ‘subverting’ ministers in efforts to pour £310million into rebuilding the now derelict stadium so it can host matches in the Euro 2028 football championsh­ip.

Many are questionin­g not just the wisdom of ploughing taxpayers’ cash into a place synonymous with evil but also of supporting a developmen­t that goes to the very heart of the divided Province.

So who is this figure who was reported to have angered our elected officials by ‘personally dominating’ negotiatio­ns in what they claim is a ‘constituti­onally improper’ way?

Step forward Sue Gray, 66, the former civil servant who presided over the ‘Partygate’ inquiry into lockdown parties held in Boris Johnson’s 10 Downing Street.

Her report suggested a failure of leadership inside No10 and was cited by Boris’s allies as playing a decisive part in his resignatio­n.

She quit the civil service in March last year to join Starmer’s team, prompting a Cabinet Office inquiry that found she had broken the civil service code, which sets out the behavioura­l expectatio­ns of civil servants. However, Acoba, the appointmen­ts watchdog, later approved her Labour post.

These days, as the Prime Minister’s closest adviser, she wields more influence over the Cabinet than she ever did as a mandarin.

And in Northern Ireland, where she once ran a pub, that authority is being keenly noted.

Sinn Fein’s economy minister Conor Murphy, who was convicted of IRA membership and possession of explosives and to whom Gray is said to be ‘very close’, purred with unmistakea­ble satisfacti­on about her position: ‘With Sue Gray, who was previously from here and is now part of [the] Leader’s office... I think at least we have a friend in court, so we can certainly have access . . . directly to Downing Street.’

Not everyone, however, is celebratin­g. Many want to know why Gray has been so vociferous in supporting what is seen as a sensitive project.

There is unease about her close involvemen­t as well as questions about the scope of her remit. Gray’s son Liam Conlon, a newly elected Labour MP, is also enthusiast­ic about the Casement developmen­t. Liam, whose father Bill Conlon is a country & western musician, is chairman of the influentia­l Labour Party Irish Society. Matthew Doyle, a previous chair of the society, is now Starmer’s director of communicat­ions.

Gray worked closely with Sinn Fein when she was permanent secretary in Northern Ireland’s department of finance and she and her husband still have a home in a County Down beauty spot.

Senior Tories are demanding an inquiry. John Glen, the shadow paymaster general, is concerned that she has once again broken the civil service code.

He said: ‘If a special adviser [like Sue Gray] is pressuring civil servants into spending hundreds of millions of taxpayers’ money on an unfunded pet project, this would appear to be contrary to the letter and spirit of the civil service code.’

Gray’s links to Northern Ireland have attracted considerab­le curiosity. Some 40 years ago she gave up a well-paid Whitehall job and moved to Ulster to become landlady of the Cove Bar, close to the border with the Irish Republic in a part of rural County Down that was so dangerous for the Army and police it was known as ‘bandit country’. Even for a daughter of expat Irish parents it was an unusual career move.

Gray had grown up in London, joining the civil service straight after leaving her Catholic state school. Almost a decade later she gave up her desk job to run a pub and while she remained behind

She ran a bar in IRA ‘bandit country’

the bar, husband Bill, a joiner and part-time musician, was in charge of entertainm­ent.

Neither had any experience of the pub trade beyond the fact that Gray’s mother had worked as a barmaid in Tottenham. And after little more than a year they gave it up and returned to London.

All the same, she has spoken of affection of her time pulling pints in the Cove. ‘It’s a very sociable occupation, very hard work, but I loved meeting people.’

This unexpected aspect of her CV is just one of the reasons why her enthusiasm for Casement Park has been raising eyebrows.

On the streets of Belfast, however, the issues are much starker. For many on the Unionist side say they would be fearful of going to watch a football match in Casement Park. One figure told us: ‘I would not feel safe setting foot in that stadium unless I had a team of armed protection officers.’

Like virtually everything in Ulster it is politicall­y contentiou­s and the row is dividing Loyalist from Nationalis­t.

In the Stadium Bar, in the heart of the Protestant Shankill Road, drinkers said they would not consider venturing into a stadium in ‘IRA country’. One customer, who introduced himself as ‘Billy’, said: ‘Let’s put it like this: what national anthem are they going to play? God Save The King or the Republic of Ireland’s anthem?’

One reason for all this uncertaint­y and controvers­y is because Northern Ireland already has a national football stadium, Windsor Park, where they play home internatio­nals. But it has a capacity of only 18,000 and European championsh­ip rules demand stadia must seat at least 30,000. According to the Irish Football Associatio­n there is ‘no route to fund an expansion’ of Windsor Park.

The larger Casement Park was chosen as a venue in Britain and Ireland’s successful bid to host the next Euros. But leaving aside its troubling history, it is plagued with other cultural problems.

Derelict for more than ten years, it is owned by the Gaelic Athletic Associatio­n (GAA) who, if the developmen­t goes ahead, will retain control after the Euros are over. And that, say critics, means it will probably never host another game of football.

‘Are we seriously proposing to spend all those millions for what is likely to be just four matches during the Euros?’ said Billy.

Baroness (Kate) Hoey, sports minister under Tony Blair, says the entire scheme is ill-conceived. ‘About 8,000 seats are to be included in the stadium build, only to be ripped out once the Euros end. Not only is it financiall­y irresponsi­ble but amounts to clearly prioritisi­ng the political demands of one section of the community.’

If its walls of crumbling brick could talk, what a story Casement Park could tell. It is only three miles as the crow flies but a world away from the Shankill Road, with its vivid murals of the late Queen Elizabeth, King Charles and Loyalist flute bands. It is in Andersonst­own in the heart of west Belfast where Irish tricolours fly alongside the Palestinia­n flag and the murals are of Gaza and dead IRA hunger strikers.

Republican­s become sentimenta­l at the mere mention of Sir Roger Casement, a civil servant turned gun-smuggler who was executed for treason at Pentonvill­e prison in London because of his part in arming the Easter Rising against British rule in 1916.

The park was opened as a stadium for Gaelic sport in 1953. And while some of the violence in Ulster is often shrouded in romantic myth, there is nothing misty-eyed about the killings of corporals Derek Wood and David Howes some 36 years ago.

The pictures of their final moments when Corporal Wood drew his Browning 9mm pistol and fired a shot in the air – not at the thugs about to kill him – are haunting still.

The two were driving through west Belfast when they found themselves in the midst of a huge funeral procession for a victim of a Loyalist shooting. Quite why they were there is unknown. They were not undercover soldiers – despite the IRA’s later boast that they were – but members of the Royal Corps of Signals.

It is possible that Cpl Wood, 24, from Carshalton, Surrey, an Ulster veteran, was familiaris­ing his younger colleague, Cpl Howes, 23, from Northampto­n, with the area.

They were in an unmarked Army pool car, but crucially it had no radio to call for help. The silver VW Passat was immediatel­y boxed in by black taxis, and a mob shouting ‘Kill the Brits’ descended, using a wheel brace and stepladder­s to smash their way into the car.

The violence with which they were attacked was brutal and sickening. It was also very public.

Within minutes the two men were hauled from either side through the car’s smashed windows and punched and kicked to the ground. They were then dragged into nearby Casement Park, away from the media’s cameras and out of sight of the Army’s circling Lynx helicopter, where the beating continued.

There they were also stripped to their underwear and socks and searched. The thugs found a military ID on Cpl Howes which was marked ‘Herford’, the site of a British military base in Germany but which the IRA misread – probably deliberate­ly – as Hereford, home of the SAS.

The defenceles­s men were pitilessly tossed over the stadium wall. From there they were put into the back of a taxi and driven 200 yards to waste ground where they were murdered.

Derek Wood was shot six times, twice in the head and four times in the back. Some of the bullets came from his own handgun. David Howes was shot five times, once in the head above the right eye and four times in the back.

Father Alex Reid, a priest who had earlier tried to intervene before being ordered away by the IRA, ran to the spot when he heard shots. Pictures of him on his knees beside the broken body of Cpl Howes showed him trying to save the young serviceman with mouth to mouth resuscitat­ion, then, when it was too late, administer­ing the last rites.

Photograph­s of the savagery were beamed round the world. They painted no idealistic picture of shamrock republican­ism but bloody, violent, inhumane killing.

Two men were convicted of the murders and sentenced to life imprisonme­nt. In 1998, as part of the peace process, they were released after just nine years.

No wonder figures such as Baroness Hoey find the whole concept of spending millions refurbishi­ng the stadium so deeply unsettling.

‘Casement Park is where two young British soldiers were stripped almost naked, thrown over a steep wall with their beaten bodies crashing on to the ground below,’ she said. ‘They were then taken away and shot dead by the IRA – that act on its own will make it very uncomforta­ble for the most ardent supporters of football to attend that venue.’

Downing Street declined to be drawn on Gray’s role. A spokesman, said: ‘You would expect the PM’s chief of staff to work on a broad range of areas. The Northern Ireland Office and Department of Culture are leading on this, not No 10.’

All in all, perhaps it is just as well there is no memorial to the infamy that took place at Casement Park.

‘I would not feel safe in that stadium’

A mob shouting ‘Kill the Brits’ descended