Now Labour faces accusations of witness nobbling

Crikey, it’s hard work keeping up with all these stories at the moment… the latest is from Birmigham where a Labour councillor was already facing a trial over accusations that they lied about their opponent to win the seat (sound familiar?).

Today’s twist is that the Crown Prosecution Service has now been called in to investigate allegations of witnesses for the trial are being nobbled.

As The Times reports:

The Director of Public Prosecutions is to examine allegations of witness-nobbling in a trial where Labour is accused of corruptly winning an election.

One witness has gone into hiding, and another told a judge his family was in danger after being warned against giving evidence. A Liberal Democrat activist stayed away from the trial when his car was torched, the election court heard.

Muhammad Afzal, a former chairman of the National Association of Black, Asian and Ethnic Minority Councillors, denies a complaint that he spread lies about an opponent to win election in May. His victory in Aston bucked the trend in which Labour lost its position as Birmingham’s largest party after 24 years. An election commissioner, sitting alone to judge the petition, is being asked to overthrow the result. Mr Afzal was previously cleared on appeal of postal vote-rigging in the city’s 2004 elections which, a judge said, “would disgrace a banana republic”. In the latest trial a witness appeared to lose his voice after he saw two relatives arrive while he gave evidence. One of the cousins had come to his house to warn him against testifying against Mr Afzal, he told the hearing. The other, Tahir Ali, is a Labour councillor. The pair arrived during a break in Mukhtar Ahmed’s evidence.