Singer’s drugs trial collapses over Mazhar Mahmood’s ‘lie’

LONDON: The trial of the pop star Tulisa Contostavlos over allegations of supplying Class A drugs collapsed here dramatically after the judge ruled that Mazhar Mahmood (also known as ‘Fake Sheikh’) had seemingly lied on oath to the court.
Mazhar Mahmood, who was central to this case, had famously trapped and lured Pakistani players Salman Butt, Muhammad Asif, Muhammad Amir and their agent Mazhar Majeed into admitting on record that they were involved in match-fixing. He had posed as a rich Indian businessman who wanted to organise a ‘big money’ tournament in the United Arab Emirates.
In the case of Tulisa, Mazhar Mahmood again posed as a rich Indian businessman called Samir Khan who wanted to cast Tulisa in one of the upcoming Hollywood films.Contostavlos was on trial for allegedly setting up an £800 cocaine deal between a friend and Mahmood. Mahmood posed as a wealthy Bollywood film producer, flying her to Las Vegas and then treating her in London. Details of the drugs deal and her alleged role in it were then published in the Sun under public interest grounds and “evidence” handed over to the police who then arrested the singer and her friend, who admitted supplying cocaine to the reporter.
At the Southwark Crown Court, where Pakistani players were also sentenced, judge Alistair McCreath said on Monday he believed Mahmood had lied in the witness stand. The Sun newspaper announced immediately that it had suspended the British Pakistani reporter.
There were “strong grounds for believing that the underlying purpose of these lies was to conceal the fact that he had been manipulating the evidence in this case” by getting another witness to change his account, McCreath told the jury. The judge dismissed the jury at Southwark Crown Court, telling them the case “cannot go any further”.
Outside court, Contostavlos condemned “a horrific and disgusting entrapment” by Mahmood and the newspaper.She said: “Mahmood has now been exposed by my lawyers of openly lying to the judge and jury. These lies were told to stop crucial evidence going before the jury. … Thankfully, the lies have been uncovered and justice has been done.” Contostavlos insisted throughout that she had been entrapped and only pretended an interest in drugs to play up to a “bad girl” image seemingly sought by the producers.
The “lie” by Mahmood dates back to a pre-trial hearing in which he denied having seen a police statement made by his driver, Alan Smith, about a conversation Smith had with Contostavlos while dropping her home in which she expressed disapproval of drugs. But under cross-examination Mahmood conceded he had received an emailed copy of the statement.
Jeremy Dein QC, for the defence, asked if he had “put influence” on Smith to change the statement. The reporter denied this, but later conceded he had discussed his worries about the statement with Smith.
The judge intervened to say this appeared to show Mahmood had lied to manipulate the evidence and that he was considering whether to order a trial, allow bad character evidence against Mahmood, or drop the case entirely.
Mahmood, he added, was the “sole progenitor” of the case and had gone to “considerable” lengths to get Contostavlos involved in crime, certainly more than police would have done.The judge did not mention whether Mahmood could face a perjury trial, but this is now a possibility because the judge has accused him of telling ‘a knowing lie’.
A front-page News of the World story, in 2002, saw Mahmood claim to have exposed a plot to kidnap former Spice Girl Victoria Beckham and hold her ransom for £5million.Five men were arrested but later cleared when the prosecution case collapsed after it was revealed the source for the story had been paid £10,000 for the story despite having criminal convictions to his name, and was therefore deemed an unreliable witness.Tulisa Contostavlos called on the Metropolitan Police to investigate Mazhar Mahmood after being cleared of arranging a drug deal. She said he had been “exposed lying to the judge and the jury”.