Ashfaq Ahmad

If there was ever to be a personification of the Bulldog Spirit, it would be Ashfaq Ahmad, a retired civil servant in his 70s who has devoted the last seven and a half years of his life to his struggle to prevent the extradition of his son Babar Ahmad to the US.

Babar has been detained in prison without trial for almost seven and a half years, making him the longest detained-without-trial British citizen in the modern history of the UK. Babar is accused of running a website which allegedly supported rebels in Chechnya and Afghanistan in the 1990s. If extradited to the US, he faces life imprisonment without parole in a Supermax prison, the conditions of which have been condemned as amounting to torture by the United Nations.

Ashfaq, who turned 77 this year, has spent the last seven years travelling around the country to speak at demonstrations, seminars and conferences to raise awareness about Babar's situations and the UK-US Extradition Treaty which allows British citizens to be extradited to the US without needing to show any evidence, as has been the case with Babar. He has given live evidence before Parliamentary Committees and numerous interviews to local, national and international media.

Ashfaq recognises the seriousness of the allegations against Babar and the need for him to be tried in a court of law if there is evidence against him. However, there is no reason why he cannot be tried in the UK where the alleged crimes are said to have been committed. For this reason, Ashfaq launched an official e-petition in August 2011 to put Babar on trial in the UK. Within 3 months, the e-petition had secured over 141,000 signatures, making it the third largest e-petition to date.

Despite his old age and ill health, Ashfaq continues to visit Babar twice a week in HMP Long Lartin on what is an increasingly difficult day long journey for him. He maintains that as long as his heart continues to beat, he will struggle for justice for his son.

Ashfaq is a human embodiment of the British bulldog spirit. Having devoted his life as a civil servant working for Britain, now as a retired pensioner, he should be resting and enjoying his old age. Instead, he is working tirelessly for justice for his son and other British citizens who could also be affected by this unjust law.

Despite having his son brutally assaulted by police when first arrested, Ashfaq is a strong believer in British justice. He represents British values of dignity, courage, determination and indomitable spirit - everything that all the Greats of Britain, past and present, had within them.