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Nazir Ahmed (Pic Courtesy: The Sun)
British Pakistani politician and former House of Lords peer, Nazir Ahmed, has been jailed for five years and six months after being convicted of sexual offences against two children in the 1970s.
Nazir Ahmed was found guilty at Sheffield crown court in January of serious sexual assault against a boy aged 11 at the time, and twice attempting to rape a girl, when he was a teenager.
“Buggery was the legal term for a specific sexual assault at the time of the offences,” the UK's Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) had noted.
The 64-year-old Labour politician, who has his roots in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK), has been associated with several anti-India protests in the UK over the years.
His brothers Mohammed Tariq, 65, and Mohammed Faroq, 71, who were both found unfit to plead or take part in the trial, were also found to have committed indecent assaults by the jury.
He said: “I buried the abuse and carried it with me on my own for years and years. I feel shame because of what these men did to me. This is not about revenge, this is about justice.”
Nazir Ahmed's male victim, and the Muslim Women's Network UK, called for him to lose his title over his conviction.
Nazir Ahmed quit from the House of Lords in November 2020 after a conduct committee report found that he sexually assaulted a vulnerable woman who sought his help.
Although no longer a member of the House of Lords after his expulsion, Nazir Ahmed has retained his title of 'Lord Of Rotherham' as a life peer. He was appointed a life peer by then Prime Minister Tony Blair.