Mosque that advised on Israeli fan ban also sat on panel that chose police chief
Kamran Hussain, then chief executive of Green Lane mosque in Birmingham, sat on the interview panel that selected Craig Guildford as chief constable of West Midlands Police
A mosque consulted by police before Israeli football fans were banned from a match in Britain was also represented on the panel that appointed the force’s chief constable, newly released documents show.
The Sunday Times reports that Kamran Hussain, then chief executive of Green Lane mosque in Birmingham, sat on the interview panel that selected Craig Guildford as chief constable of West Midlands Police in December 2022.
The force later consulted the same mosque before barring supporters of Maccabi Tel Aviv from attending a Europa League fixture against Aston Villa last autumn. The consultation was disclosed by Guildford in a letter to MPs on the Home Affairs Select Committee.
The decision to exclude Israeli fans and transparently flawed intelligence used to justify it has left Guildford’s position in doubt. Kemi Badenoch, the Conservative leader, has said he should be dismissed.
Guildford’s future may be decided within days, when a report by Sir Andy Cooke, His Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Constabulary, is expected to be submitted to the home secretary, Shabana Mahmood, and laid before Parliament.
Freedom of information disclosures show that Guildford was appointed after appearing before a panel convened by Simon Foster, the Labour police and crime commissioner for the West Midlands, which included Hussain. The identities of other panel members have been withheld.
Nick Timothy, the Conservative MP for West Suffolk and an Aston Villa supporter, told the Sunday Times: “West Midlands Police relied on false intelligence to justify banning Israeli fans from Villa Park and discussed the decision with Green Lane mosque. The question now is who is really in charge. It clearly was not the police.”
The force has been accused of retrospectively creating intelligence to support the ban, and of failing to disclose warnings that Islamist protesters planned to target Israeli supporters if they were allowed into Birmingham.
Green Lane mosque has itself come under scrutiny after a visiting preacher told worshippers in a sermon shortly before Christmas that men could physically discipline their wives as a “last resort” and that women should not leave the home without their husband’s permission.
The mosque said the remarks had been taken out of context and that the sermon’s true message was one of love, mercy and a rejection of harm, coercion, oppression and abuse.