Former Police Commander Ali Dizaei Found Guilty Of Misconduct

Former Police Commander Ali Dizaei Found Guilty Of Misconduct

Britain's most controversial police chief will return to jail after being found guilty of corruption for a second time.

Scotland Yard commander Ali Dizaei will never wear police uniform again after being convicted unanimously at his retrial of misconduct and perverting the course of justice.

Dizaei was sentenced to three years in prison.

He was first convicted of framing Waad al-Baghdadi in a street row in 2010 - but he walked out of Leyhill open prison a year later after the Court of Appeal quashed the conviction.

Guilty verdicts for a second time mean there is now no way back for Dizaei, who created a web of lies to cover his tracks.

Despite new evidence about Iraqi al-Baghdadi's immigration status, jurors were not swayed by Dizaei's denials.

They found he attacked the young Iraqi businessman before arresting and attempting to frame him.

Dizaei sat in the dock with his head bowed and his eyes closed for much of the time as he waited for the jury to return to court, the Press Association reported.

Wearing a dark blue suit with a pale blue shirt and a purple striped tie, he stood without making any reaction as the jury foreman read out the unanimous guilty verdicts.

The court heard that he served 15 months out of the four-year jail term he received after being convicted of the same offences in February 2010.

"The jury agreed today that Commander Ali Dizaei abused his position as a senior police officer when he threatened and arrested an innocent man with whom he had a personal dispute.

"Mr Dizaei had no proper reason for making this arrest and there was no real evidence that this young man had committed any crime on that day. Mr Dizaei's corruption, which would be deplorable in any police officer, was all the more so given his position as a highly ranked Police Commander.

"The public entrust the police with considerable powers and with that comes considerable responsibility. Mr Dizaei abused that power and ignored that responsibility."

The convictions spell the end of the Iranian officer's career spanning three decades.

He won his job back with the Metropolitan Police before the retrial but has been suspended on his full salary of £90,000.

Dizaei previously emerged unscathed from a series of inquiries over the years, including a multimillion-pound undercover operation examining claims of corruption, fraud and dishonesty.

But the attempt to frame a man who pestered him for payment over a website exposed him as a violent bully and liar who abused his position.

Dizaei will remain a senior police officer until the bureaucratic formal process of throwing him out of the force can be completed.

He will then be sacked for gross misconduct and could face losing all or part of his pension under further measures aimed at punishing corrupt officers.

The two men met by chance in the Persian Yas restaurant, run by Dizaei's friend Sohrab Eshragi, in Hammersmith Road, west London, on July 18 2008.

Al-Baghdadi approached Dizaei and asked for £600 he was owed for building a website showcasing his career, press interviews and speeches.

This angered Dizaei, who had just eaten a meal with his wife after attending a ceremony at New Scotland Yard for new recruits.

The officer confronted the younger man in a nearby sidestreet where a scuffle took place and al-Baghdadi was roughly arrested and handcuffed.

Dizaei told al-Baghdadi he would "f*** up your life" and had "10 witnesses" who would back him up.

In one of two 999 calls, Dizaei asked an operator for "urgent assistance" before starting to arrest al-Baghdadi.

When officers arrived, Dizaei handed them the metal mouthpiece of a shisha pipe, held on al-Baghdadi's key ring, and claimed he had been stabbed with it.

But a doctor at Hammersmith police station concluded that two red marks on the officer's torso were probably self-inflicted and did not match the pipe.

Dizaei told colleagues he had been attacked, leaving al-Baghdadi in custody for 24 hours and ultimately facing prosecution.

When al-Baghdadi was told he would not face any charge, he complained about his treatment and Dizaei's web of deceit slowly unravelled.

The Crown said the officer was guilty of a "wholesale abuse of power" motivated by self-interest and pride.

The jury also heard that Dizaei rarely paid for his meals and left his unmarked car on a double yellow line while at the restaurant.

In a bid to get off the hook Iranian-born Dizaei, 49, from Acton, west London, said he suffered a "torrent of abuse" from Al-Baghdadi and felt threatened.

A 999 call Al-Baghdadi made during the confrontation formed a central part of the case.

Al-Baghdadi was heard by the operator saying "No, no, no" before Dizaei said to him "I am arresting you".

Two police cars arrived at the restaurant within minutes before finding Dizaei in full uniform.

He was described by officers as "calm", while Al-Baghdadi "looked similar but perhaps confused", Wright said.

Jurors were told that Al-Baghdadi had used false documents to enter Britain in 2003.

He had wrongly stated that he was born in Baghdad in 1985 and was fleeing the country to avoid persecution, Riordan added.

Born in Tehran in 1962, Dizaei was brought up in a family steeped in policing with a father who headed the traffic police and an assistant commissioner grandfather.

He said police work was his destiny and joined Thames Valley Police after attending boarding school and City University Law School. In 1999, Dizaei joined the Metropolitan Police and was promoted to superintendent, based in Kensington, south-west London.

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