Top police officer ‘falsely held man’

A POLICE commander bullied and falsely arrested an innocent man in a “wholesale abuse” of his police powers, a jury heard.

Ali Dizaei inflicted injuries on himself as part of a web of lies following a row outside a London restaurant, London’s Southwark Crown Court was told.

The 49-year-old Scotland Yard commander took advantage of his position as a senior officer in the Metropolitan Police to further his own interests, it is claimed.

He is said to have threatened and arrested Iraqi Waad Al-Baghdadi in a dispute over payment for a personal website, AliDizaei.com.

Prosecutor Peter Wright, QC, said actions like Dizaei’s have a “corrosive” impact “between citizen and police generally”.

Opening the Crown’s case, he said: “He was, in fact, pursuing a citizen for his own personal motive.”

Dizaei, from Acton, west London, denies charges of misconduct in a public office and perverting the course of justice.

Jurors – who have already been informed the case is a retrial – were told that the case centres on a confrontation at the Persian Yas restaurant in Kensington in July 2008.

Jurors listened to a 999 call Mr Al-Baghdadi made during the confrontation.

Mr Al-Baghdadi was heard by the operator saying “No, no, no” before Dizaei said to him: “I am arresting you,” the court was told.

The first charge alleges that Dizaei is responsible for misconduct in a public office by threatening Mr Al-Baghdadi and by “purporting to arrest and detain” him, knowing he did not have reasonable grounds.

The second charge alleges that the father of three “did a series of acts which had a tendency to pervert the course of public justice” by falsely alleging in oral and written statements that he had been the victim of an unprovoked physical assault.

The trial was adjourned until Monday.