Mohammed Fahir Amaaz and his elder brother Muhammad Amaad both deny assault
Mohammed Fahir Amaaz and Muhammed Amaad (left), outside Liverpool Crown Court(Image: PA)
Closing speeches have been made by prosecutors and defence barristers as the trial concerning a confrontation between police officers and two brothers at Manchester Airport nears its final stages.
University student Mohammed Fahir Amaaz, 20, and his elder brother, Muhammad Amaad, 26, both of Tarnside Close in Rochdale, deny assaulting armed cops and say they acted in self-defence. They are standing trial at Liverpool Crown Court.
Amaaz was captured throwing 12 blows including punches, ‘elbow strikes’ and one kick while his brother, Amaad, was seen throwing six punches in CCTV footage previously played to the jury. The footage also showed one of the armed police officers, PC Zachary Marsden, kicking Amaaz in the face while he was on the ground after the suspect had been Tasered, before appearing to aim a stamp at his head.
Police were initially called after Amaaz allegedly headbutted a member of the public, Abdulkareem Hamzah Abbas Ismaeil, minutes earlier in a Starbucks café. The brothers claimed Mr Ismaeil had racially abused and assaulted their mother during her flight to Manchester from Qatar.
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In his closing speech to the jury, prosecutor Paul Greaney KC claimed PC Marsden’s actions in kicking Amaaz while he was on the ground, after the alleged violence by the defendants, were ‘irrelevant’ to the jury’s deliberations.
“What happened subsequently is irrelevant to why the defendants used the force they did. Nothing that occurred after this point can possibly form part of their justification for what they had done,” Mr Greaney said.
He said the prosecution did not ‘shy away’ from the ‘kick’ and ‘stamp’ by the officer. “Everyone will have a view, they may not be the same,” he said.
“What does the kick, what does the stamp have to with your task in deciding those counts? The defence suggest, at least we understand it, that the kick and the stamp and other aspects of the aftermath reveal that the officers were out of control from start to finish.”
Footage shows violent scenes between armed police and brothers at Manchester Airport
Mr Greaney claimed that given the evidence in the case, including from the three ‘professional officers’, the jury can find that the suggestion was ‘false’ and ‘wrong’. The prosecutor alleged that both men had told lies about what had happened in Starbucks.
He said: “The fact that both brothers have told you the same lies about the events in the café is the clearest indication, we invite you to conclude, that they have together sought to concoct a false story to distract you from what really occurred.”
Mr Greaney said of the Starbucks incident: “Amaaz was the aggressor and his account that he was calm, collected and polite is yet more lies.”
He claimed that Amaaz ‘lost his temper’ and ‘did so out of anger and revenge, and not in self-defence’. The prosecutor said of events in the pay station when officers went to arrest Amaaz: “We submit you can be sure that they were doing what the law entitled them to do and what their duty required them to do.
“You can be sure, we suggest, that the officers were effecting a lawful arrest in doing what they did.” He said of Amaaz: “He decided to resist that arrest, as a result all of his subsequent actions were unlawful.”
Defending Amaaz, Imran Khan KC said his client’s case is that he approached Mr Ismaeil in order to seek an apology, and that he spoke with ‘respect’ and was ‘softly spoken’.
He claimed the prosecution were not been able to ‘undermine the suggestion those threats were made’ by Mr Ismaeil. Mr Khan argued that Amaaz acted in ‘the heat of the moment’ and that his actions were in ‘lawful self-defence’.
Addressing the incident in the car park pay station, Mr Khan accepted that police officers have a ‘difficult job’ but said that unlike other jobs they have a ‘huge amount of power’.
PC Zachary Marsden who is alleged to have been assaulted at Manchester Airport(Image: GMP)
“PC Marsden didn’t do the things we say he ought to have done,” Mr Khan claimed. “Get as much information as you can before you decide on your strategy.
“If you don’t, you could end up in trouble. All of that information would have been useful and should have been obtained. We say that is the start of the failings that occurred with PC Marsden. There were lots of options.
“You might expect that if PC Marsden had just gone up to Fahir [Amaaz] and said ‘excuse me sir, would you mind just stepping out, can I have a word with you?’ It didn’t occur to him to extend that courtesy to Fahir.”
Mr Khan said: “The decision that PC Marsden made on that fateful evening, a year and one day ago, was unlawful.” He told the jury that it is unlawful to detain a suspect intending to arrest but to delay the decision to ‘some later time’.
He continued: “All three of them grabbed various parts of Fahir’s body. That was a deliberate thing. They never announced themselves [as police officers].
“This is a group of officers led by PC Marsden that flouted every procedure, every rule, every law.” Mr Khan said what happened next ‘must have been absolutely terrifying’ for Amaaz.
The KC said: “PC Marsden, without saying a word, puts his hand onto his neck and restrains him, forcing him down. He thought he was going to be battered to death, he thought he was going to die.
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“Even if he was mistaken, if that’s what he believed, that’s enough. Who throws the first blow in all of this? PC Marsden. He has a lot to answer for. His decision making has caused all of this to happen. It could have been avoided.”
Mr Khan said of his client: “He is doing what we say anybody else in that position would have done.” Mr Khan also addressed the jury about the kick PC Marsden delivered to Amaaz as he lay on the ground after being Tasered.
He said: “We suggest you would take a very dim view of what he did. PC Marsden sought to justify the unjustifiable. He kicked Fahir in the head in what you might think was a rugby style kick.
“In what world could any police officer justify that conduct? This was an officer out of control.” Amaad’s barrister is due to deliver her closing speech tomorrow (July 25).
Amaaz denies assaulting Mr Ismaeil, by beating him on July 23, 2024, at Manchester Airport. He also denies a second charge that he assaulted PC Marsden causing actual bodily harm.
The defendant also denies a third charge alleging he assaulted PC Lydia Ward causing actual bodily harm. He also denies a fourth charge against him alleging he assaulted, by beating, an emergency worker, PC Ellie Cook. Amaad denies a single charge, namely that he also assaulted PC Marsden occasioning actual bodily harm.
Proceeding