Published Date: 11 February 2011

http://news.scotsman.com/news/Appeal-court-clears-exMP39s-son.6715922.jp?articlepage=2

The son of former Labour MP Mohammad Sarwar has had his conviction for laundering hundreds of thousands of pounds quashed by appeal judges.

Athif Sarwar, 32, was jailed for three years in June 2007 after being found guilty of processing VAT frauds worth £845,137.

He maintained he was innocent and was freed from custody two weeks later pending the outcome of his appeal.

Three seniorADVERTISEMENTjudges at the Court of Criminal Appeal in Edinburgh yesterday ruled he had suffered a miscarriage of justice and that his conviction should be overturned.

Mr Sarwar had denied two charges against him but was found guilty after a six-week trial. He was convicted of laundering the money from six companies into United Wholesale (Scotland) Ltd at Maxwell Road, Glasgow between 24 February and 25 April, 2003. He was managing director of the wholesale business.

Prosecutors at the trial said Mr Sarwar or his business had been in line to benefit from a 10 per cent commission for processing the six-figure sum, described in court as criminal property.

The case against him followed an investigation by HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC).

Outside court yesterday, Mohammad Sarwar said: "I believe institutionalised racism has played a part. This was a living hell for my family."

The former MP called for an inquiry into the investigation by HMRC, which began with a visit by officials to the Maxwell Road premises in April 2003 and eventually led to his son standing trial at the High Court in Glasgow.

"I believe the Crown got it wrong, HMRC got it wrong and - I am saying this with a heavy heart - that Lord Carloway, the trial judge, got it wrong."

The Lord Justice General, Lord Hamilton, sitting with Lords Osborne and Eassie, found there was a lack of evidence to link Mr Sarwar to the alleged crime. They said in a written judgment: "The verdict of the trial court will be set aside and the conviction on each of the charges quashed."

In doing so, they said that defence claims there had been no case to answer - made at the end of the Crown case in the trial - should have been upheld in relation to one charge.

They further quashed Mr Sarwar's conviction on the second charge, saying: "We are persuaded that the appellant suffered a miscarriage of justice also in respect of charge two."

Mr Sarwar, of Mearnskirk, had been accused along with Mansoor Khan, of Giffnock, who was assistant manager of United Wholesale. Mr Khan was cleared of money-laundering.

During the original trial, the Crown said Mr Sarwar had used the business to take in thousands of pounds from a "customer" who had pocketed the money after cheating the tax man of VAT.

The cash was then converted into goods - mostly cigarettes - collected on behalf of a chain of businesses supposedly run by the mystery customer.

After the visit by HMRC investigators, Mr Sarwar severed links with the customer he knew as Asif Ahmed. The money remaining in the warehouse's bank account was returned.

The appeal judges found no evidence of any personal dealings between Mr Sarwar and the fraudster and nothing in the business accounts shown to him that would have alerted him to a possibility of money laundering.