Pakistani MQM founder Altaf Hussain acquitted of terror charges

Politician was charged over alleged hate speech broadcast from UK to supporters in Karachi

Altaf Hussain, exiled founder of Pakistan's Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM), arrives at Kingston Crown Court in London. AFP

Pakistani opposition politician Altaf Hussain has been acquitted of terror charges relating to hate speech offences.

Mr Hussain, founder of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM), had been put on trial at London's Kingston Crown Court, accused of two counts of encouraging terrorism following two speeches he made in August 2016 from London to his followers in Karachi.

On Tuesday, a jury acquitted him of the charges by a majority verdict.

Crowds gathered to hear the 2016 address, which was broadcast from loudspeakers in Karachi. Violence later erupted in the city as police clashed with MQM supporters.

Prosecutors accused Mr Hussain of urging a crowd of strikers in Karachi to ransack media houses and storm the local headquarters of a military unit during his broadcasts.

Two TV studios were soon after attacked and taken off air, while police officers were assaulted and injured, prosecutors said. One person was killed in the violence.

But defence lawyer Rupert Bowers urged jurors to judge the case “by the yardstick of Pakistan” and its “endemic violence".

“Mr Hussain did nothing other than he has always done in trying to represent an oppressed part of the population while organising what is axiomatically a peaceful protest by way of hunger strike,” Mr Bowers said in his summing up.

“If violence ensued in the latter part of that day, he’s regretful of that — he’s not a terrorist.”

While Mr Hussain has been acquitted, he is still being pursued in London’s courts by the Pakistan-based leadership of the MQM, which broke with Mr Hussain after his 2016 speeches and is now attempting to seize control of the party’s UK properties in civil litigation.

A former student leader, Mr Hussain founded the secular organisation in 1984.

The MQM was once the third-largest political party in Pakistan.

Mr Hussain has run the party from London since he arrived in the UK in 1992 for a kidney operation.

He requested asylum in the UK in the 1990s and was later granted British citizenship.

A series of UK investigations into Mr Hussain and MQM were first launched 12 years ago after one of the party's founding members, Imran Farooq, was stabbed to death outside his home in north London.

In 2020, a court in Islamabad, hearing evidence provided by Scotland Yard, convicted three MQM members of his murder and said Mr Hussain had ordered his killing.

Mr Hussain has denied any involvement in Farooq’s death and has not been charged for the crime in Britain.