00:00A Birmingham council candidate with an historic terrorism conviction is facing renewed scrutiny as the campaign begins.
00:08Shahid Butt, who's standing in Sparkil as part of an independent alliance of candidates,
00:14says he was wrongly convicted abroad and that his confession was forced under torture.
00:20He's legally allowed to stand, but his candidacy has prompted sharp criticism from some politicians and community groups.
00:27Well, the simple answer is that this would not be unprecedented and I give you the fact that if you go to Belfast,
00:34over the period since the peace process, there have been many who have stood successfully for the Northern Ireland Assembly who were ex-terrorists.
00:45That was seen as being vital, if you like. These were people who had, quite literally I suppose, put their lives on the line as they see it
00:53and of course were seen to be representative of their community. And it was seen to be, if you like, of nudging the peace process forward
00:59and taking the gun out of politics, which by and large has successfully happened.
01:03Obviously, we're talking about sort of the streets of Birmingham.
01:06We don't have a conflict where you have somebody who has been convicted, albeit in a different country,
01:11but nonetheless has these convictions. It's a real difficult one. And I'm of the sort of the view that by and large,
01:20anybody can stand for Parliament if the sort of the law allows them to do so.
01:24And if the sort of the electors wish to have them as their representative, then that is perfectly fine in terms of democracy.
01:32Butt was convicted by a Yemeni court in 1999 and jailed for five years after prosecutors said an armed group planned attacks in Aden,
01:42including the British consulate. Butt disputes the conviction, saying the process was unfair
01:48and that he signed a confession under torture. Since returning to the UK, he's been involved in community activity
01:55and political campaigning. He's standing under the Independent Candidate Alliance,
01:59a group fielding candidates locally on issues including Gaza and public services.
02:05Under election rules, people who have completed prison sentences are not automatically barred from standing in local elections.
02:13So there is a sort of a real difficult conundrum here to be solved, where you'll have these divisions will become sort of cemented.
02:22And it's very difficult once the divisions occur to undo them. I bring myself back to sort of Northern Ireland,
02:27where, of course, we see what sort of this sectarian division does. And it literally erects walls.
02:33And in extremists, it leads to sort of people being murdered for the sake of one thing or another, an ideology.
02:39And it's not a good thing as far as our politics is concerned.
02:42With nominations confirmed, voters in Sparkle will decide whether a candidate's past should influence their choice at the ballot box.
02:49Electoral officials say eligibility is set out in law, while wider judgments are left to the electorate.
02:56Polling in Birmingham takes place this May.
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