Grenfell Tower volunteer shocked as she is jailed for race hate posts

A Grenfell Tower volunteer who described the fire as a ‘Jewish sacrifice’ and called the 9/11 terrorist attack a ‘Mossad job’ has been jailed for eleven months .

Tahra Ahmed, 51, posted two anti semitic Facebook posts between January 2016 and January 2018.

The first post was published on 18 June 2017, four days after the Grenfell Tower fire which claimed the lives of 72 people.

It refers to the fire as a ‘Jewish sacrifice’ and relates it to the New York twin towers which were destroyed in 9/11 and contained a link to a video of the Grenfell tragedy.

Ahmed stated: ‘I’ve been at the scene, at the protest and at the community meetings and have met many of the victims…some who were still in the same clothes they escaped in.

‘They are very real and genuine [sic], their pain and suffering is raw and deep and their disgusting neglect by authorities continues.

‘Watch the footage of people trapped in the inferno with flames behind them. They were burnt alive in a Jewish sacrifice.

‘Grenfell is owned by a private Jewish property developer just like the twin towers was owned by Jew Silverstein who collected trillions in insurance claims.

‘I wonder how much Goldman is standing to make in the world’s most expensive real estate location.’

The second post, likely to have been published on 26 January 2017, was published on a Facebook group with over 55,000 members.

It says: ‘Jews have always been the ones behind ritual torture, crucifixion and murder of children, especially young boys, as a way of atoning for their sins in order to be allowed back into Palestine.

‘Here is a very brief history of these crimes they committed in Britain over the centuries.’

The post contains a link to an article called Jewish Settlement, Ritual Murder by Geoffrey H Smith.

Prosecutor Hugh French said the posts Ahmed published were ‘virulently anti-Semitic and significantly crossed the line as to what is acceptable in a liberal democracy.

‘Looking at the language of the posts, the crude racial stereotyping and the insulting tone, the Crown say that you can infer that she posted them intending to stir up racial hatred and that racial hatred was likely to be stirred up.’

Detective sergeant Ross Burrell said police conducted an ‘open source review’ of Ahmed’s Facebook in November 2018 which gave them access to her account’s activity.

The officer read aloud posts and comments, attributed to Ahmed’s Facebook account, broadly agreeing that the 9/11 disaster was a Jewish ‘ruse’.

One post said: ‘9/11 was not an inside job.

‘It was a Mossad job and the dirty, lying and devious… blamed it on the Muslims.

‘They subject their evil on me and my people and when we criticise and point out facts, they cry antisemitism.’

Another post read: ‘”Hate speech” is so blatantly just a ruse to cover up the exposure of their crimes. Just like 9/11 was a ruse to get into illegal invasions…of the Arab nations.’

Judge Mark Dennis said that the author of a pre-sentence report found that Ahmed continued to ‘minimise and justify her offending’.

He told Ahmed: ‘The stirring up of racial hatred against any person or group of persons in a civilised and democratic society is an abhorrent act and there is a need to protect everyone in our society against such discrimination and division and to deter such offending.

‘You are an educated, widely-read and articulate individual but also a person who expresses views about a range of matters in a passionate and apparently committed way which can influence and attract others as was apparent when listening to various character witnesses called on your behalf during the trial.

‘When your views are born out of racial hatred towards others in society then your words can serve only to distort the thinking of others and to stir up hatred where none existed before or else entrench or worsen views already held by those who shared with you such a dreadful mindset.

‘I have no doubt that when you wrote and published your assertions with regard to the Grenfell Tower tragedy you knew full well what you were doing and that by posting such venom you intended to stir up hatred towards Jews in general.

‘Having listened with care to the evidence you gave over several days on the trial, and the manner in which you gave such evidence, I have no reason to conclude that you have any true or genuine remorse of your offending conduct.’

Ahmed appeared shocked when she heard she was going to prison, and said ‘I love you’ to supporters in the public gallery before being taken to the cells.

Jurors also heard replies from Ahmed to other people’s Facebook posts related to World Trade Center conspiracies.

‘9/11 is the single most significant event,’ Ahmed’s comment read, ‘It really was the day the world changed.

‘A government to murder its own people in order to have an excuse to invade…the Middle East.’

In his closing speech, Benjamin Newton, defending, said the prosecution ‘muddied the waters’ in terms of what Ahmed was actually on trial for.

‘We do not prosecute everybody who writes something offensive on social media because there is a line.

‘She is not on trial for being anti semitic.

‘Even if she was, if she came before you and said, “Actually I am predisposed against Jewish people,” it is not a crime.

‘The prosecution have to prove to you that she is guilty of stirring up racial hatred.

‘And I suggest she absolutely did not, and the evidence makes it clear that was not her intention.

‘Freedom of speech is people being allowed to say things that you do not approve of.

‘Our law recognises that.

‘This is why Tahra Ahmed is not guilty of a crime simply for posting material that is abusive or insulting… provided it does not intend to provoke violence.’

Giving evidence Ahmed told the court: ‘When you take things out of context, like you are with this, it totally bastardises it,’ she said during cross-examination.

‘This whole thing is a sham – what is happening to me.

‘For basically two Facebook posts I’m being hung drawn and quartered in a place where murderers are tried.

‘This is six days of taxpayers’ money being spent on 12 jurors and all these barristers and judges and for what?

‘For something that was stated five years ago.

‘It is absolutely preposterous that you are taking something completely out of context and crucifying me for it.’

Ahmed told the court the ‘Jews’ she referred to in the posts were those who belonged to a criminal ‘cabal’ of ‘the evil elite who are orchestrating everything in order to divide and conquer the world.

She said she was not referring to the ‘common Jew’ and said: ‘I have Jewish friends. Nobody ever said, “Tahra that didn’t come across well”.

‘Because they know me; they know I’m not racist.

‘They know that I love all people except the criminal elements.’

She added that she has made the distinction between the ‘common’ and ‘cabal’ Jew ‘hundreds of times’.

‘The one or two occasions where I haven’t qualified it, you have literally picked those two occasions where I have done that.

‘If you look at the other comments, I have always qualified it with satanic, Zionist, evil, ruling or whatever.’

Ahmed, of Lansdowne Road, Tottenham, denied but was convicted of two counts of stirring up racial hatred by publishing written material.
She was jailed for 11 months

ends