Shahid Butt has encouraged his young backers to “knock their enemies’ teeth out”
An Islamist terrorist with a conviction is seeking local office in Birmingham, UK. Shahid Butt has asked voters to disregard his past “mistakes,” which include plotting to bomb the British consulate in Yemen.
In an interview with Birmingham Live this week, Butt described himself as the “ideal candidate” to “unite” his Sparkhill district in the city council elections this May. Two-thirds of Sparkhill’s residents are of Pakistani origin, while one-third of Birmingham’s 1.1 million population is Muslim.
Butt was sentenced to five years in prison in Yemen in 1999 after being found guilty of planning attacks with a group of jihadists on the British consulate in Aden, an Anglican church, and a Swiss-owned hotel.
He insists he did nothing wrong, claiming his confession was extracted under torture. “It was all just made up,” he told the Birmingham Mail. “Nobody actually died, nothing happened at all.”
However, he has admitted to “mistakes” in his past. As a youth, Butt was part of a Pakistani street gang in 1980s Birmingham that clashed with white skinhead gangs. He also confesses to traveling to Afghanistan and Bosnia in the 1990s to fight alongside the son of convicted terrorist Abu Hamza.
Butt, who identifies himself as an “Islamist,” is a member of the Independent Candidates Alliance (ICA)—a group of Muslim candidates founded by Akhmed Yakoob, a lawyer accused of money laundering. The ICA is fielding 20 candidates across Birmingham in the upcoming elections.
“I am not a pacifist,” Butt told Birmingham Live. “If someone attacks me…I am not just going to turn the other cheek, I am going to defend myself. I will be pre-emptive, as the law advises me, if I feel like my life is threatened, or my family, I will do a pre-emptive strike.”
He has counseled his fellow Muslims to adopt his stance. “Muslims are not pacifists,” he told demonstrators ahead of local team Aston Villa’s match against Maccabi Tel Aviv last November. “If somebody comes into your face, you knock his teeth out. That’s my message to the youth.”