A CONVICTED terrorist who was part of an armed gang is running to be a local councillor in Birmingham.
Shahid Butt, 60, was jailed in Yemen in 1999 for his part in a terror plot which involved associating with armed groups, plotting murder and destruction, and owning weapons.
However, Butt has sparked fury by announcing he is standing in the May local elections to be a councillor in Sparkhill despite his past.
He said: “I have made mistakes.”
Butt has been unveiled as a candidate for an alliance of independents set to contest about 20 seats in the Birmingham city council election on May 7
He is being supported by Akhmed Yakoob who founded the Independent Candidate Alliance.
Yakoob ran to be an MP against the current Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood, losing by only 3,000 votes in the Birmingham Ladywood constituency.
Yakoob has since been charged with money laundering and is set to go on trial in 2027.
Butt was convicted as part of a gang of 10 men who had links to an Islamist group known to have kidnapped 16 westerners, four of whom were killed in the rescue mission.
Alleged targets of Butt’s group in Yemen included the British consulate, a church, and a hotel.
He said he went to Afghanistan and fought alongside the son of Abu Hamza – the radical cleric and terrorist from Finsbury Park mosque.
Butt told BirminghamLive: “My actual charge was being a member of an armed gang and conspiring to commit violence, not terrorism as such.
“The whole thing was about conspiring…nobody actually died, nothing happened at all.”
He added: “It was all just made up…the weapons were all planted.”
In an interview with the Birmingham Mail, he admitted to having “made mistakes” in his youth but maintained his innocence over his terror conviction.
He said his confession to being part of a terror gang had been extracted through torture and evidence against him was “planted”.
After being released from prison in 2003, Mr Butt became a campaigner against extremism.
Earlier in life, he had also been part of a local gang of mostly Pakistani youths and travelled to Bosnia and Afghanistan.
Mr Butt supported calls for protests against Israeli football side Maccabi Tel Aviv when it played Aston Villa last year.
He urged “every single” local Muslim to attend.
However, he has also backed efforts by Shabana Mahmood to stop the boats crossing the Channel.
He told the Birmingham Mail: “I also don’t want any Tom, Dick or Harry coming over and living in our communities when we don’t know who they are.
“That is not being racist, that is being a good British citizen.”
