Tuesday 3 February 2015

100 witness to testify against Lutfur Rahman in Tower Hamlets electoral fraud case

Four voters in Tower Hamlets who have managed to haul Mayor Lutfur Rahman in front of a judge to hear charges of electoral fraud are planning to call 100 witnesses.

The court has been told that Rahman likened his Labour opponent to the 1930s fascist Oswald Moseley and he and his supporters told voters that he was anti-Islamic and a racist. The court also heard that Rahman and his supporters claimed that the Labour Party were planning sex shops and council tax increases in the borough and that they fraudulently obtained votes through ballot stuffing, intimidation and accompanying women into polling booths to fill out their ballot for them. The fresh allegations against Rahman and his party that emerged in January are part of this court case against him.

Rahman denies the charges but there was sufficient evidence against him and his Tower Hamlets First party for the Secretary of State for Communities & Local Government to send in administrators to run large parts of the council in place of the Mayor and his councillors.