Solicitor struck off over Norwegian harassment convictions

A solicitor who practised for more than a decade without flagging up two harassment convictions has been struck off the roll.

Farid El Diwany had been convicted in 2001 and 2003 in a Norwegian court but continued to practise in England until his practising certificate was revoked by the Solicitors Regulation Authority in 2017.

The Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal heard that El Diwany had been fined and then given a suspended prison sentence after sending 200 letters and cards to a former friend in Norway and setting up a website on which he wrote disparaging comments about her. The correspondence contained repeated themes about her sex life, abortions, suicide attempts and partner’s drug abuse. He also sent a ‘report’ about her life story to neighbours, friends and relations. The harassment was said to have forced the victim to move to a secret address, obtain an unlisted number and reportedly feeling scared to go out.

Details of El Diwany’s convictions appeared in a High Court judgment from 2011 when he brought unsuccessful libel actions against a Norwegian journalist, police officer, the Ministry of Justice and the police of Norway. His record was flagged up to the SRA in 2017 after a report from a colleague.

The SRA told the tribunal it should not look behind a conviction unless there were exceptional circumstances.

El Diwany, who represented himself, submitted that the convictions were unsound and claimed it was ‘plainly untrue’ the woman felt harassed. His second conviction was the result of duress and he considered that had he not been a Muslim the prosecution would never have been brought. He warned that the tribunal risked ‘subtle Islamophobia tainting the proceedings’ if it did not go behind the convictions, but the panel found no basis for claiming exceptional circumstances.

It was heard El Diwany made repeated applications for practising certificates without telling the SRA about his convictions. He claimed not to know at the time he was under a duty to report this. He considered there was no obligation to disclose ‘something so flawed’.

The tribunal ruled it was not open to a solicitor to unilaterally determine under which circumstances it was unnecessary to report a conviction. In the event, he was ‘effectively usurping the role of the regulator’ to form his own conclusion.

The tribunal rejected El Diwany’s suggestion that a one-month suspension would suffice, and opted to strike him off. He was also ordered to pay £5,700 costs.

www.lawgazette.co.uk | by John Hyde | 24 January 2020

Solicitor struck off over Norwegian harassment convictions

A solicitor who practised for more than a decade without flagging up two harassment convictions has been struck off the roll.

Farid El Diwany had been convicted in 2001 and 2003 in a Norwegian court but continued to practise in England until his practising certificate was revoked by the Solicitors Regulation Authority in 2017.

The Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal heard that El Diwany had been fined and then given a suspended prison sentence after sending 200 letters and cards to a former friend and/or to various individuals and public and private bodies in Norway, and setting up a website on which he wrote disparaging comments about her. The correspondence contained repeated themes about her sex life, abortions, suicide attempts and partner’s drug abuse. He also sent a ‘report’ about her life story to neighbours, friends and relations. The harassment was said to have forced the victim to move to a secret address, obtain an unlisted number and reportedly feeling scared to go out.

Details of El Diwany’s convictions appeared in a High Court judgment from 2011 when he brought unsuccessful libel actions against a Norwegian journalist, police officer, the Ministry of Justice and the police of Norway. His record was flagged up to the SRA in 2017 after a report from a colleague.

The SRA told the tribunal it should not look behind a conviction unless there were exceptional circumstances.

El Diwany, who represented himself, submitted that the convictions were unsound and claimed it was ‘plainly untrue’ the woman felt harassed. His second conviction was the result of duress and he considered that had he not been a Muslim the prosecution would never have been brought. He warned that the tribunal risked ‘subtle Islamophobia tainting the proceedings’ if it did not go behind the convictions, but the panel found no basis for claiming exceptional circumstances.

It was heard El Diwany made repeated applications for practising certificates without telling the SRA about his convictions. He claimed not to know at the time he was under a duty to report this. He considered there was no obligation to disclose ‘something so flawed’.

The tribunal ruled it was not open to a solicitor to unilaterally determine under which circumstances it was unnecessary to report a conviction. In the event, he was ‘effectively usurping the role of the regulator’ to form his own conclusion.

The tribunal rejected El Diwany’s suggestion that a one-month suspension would suffice, and opted to strike him off. He was also ordered to pay £5,700 costs.

El Diwany has contacted the Gazette to confirm he will appeal the SDT's judgment.

www.lawgazette.co.uk | by John Hyde | 24 January 2020

The Law Society Gazette, racism and SRA integrity as applied to the abused Outsider

From: Farid El Diwany
Date: Mon, 11 May 2020, 12:09
Subject: Islamophobia and SRA integrity
To: Mr John Hyde @ The Law Society Gazette

Dear Mr Hyde,

I refer to your Gazette story and amended Gazette story earlier this year on my being struck off the Solicitors Roll by the SDT for not reporting on my trumped-up two Norwegian convictions, one just for an exposé website called Norwayuncovered.com in which I named my abuser.

An Administrative Court hearing will take place in February 2021 regarding my appeal against the SRA. Before that we have the Independent Reviewer adjudicating on another SRA Norway-related matter, followed by another Administrative Court hearing if need be.

I have forwarded you below an email today sent to the SRA which concerns their inability and your own inability to 'look behind Mrs Justice Sharp's 2011 judgment'. If you had the investigative reporting instinct of say Robert Fisk of the Independent you would voluntarily criticise a judgment if it is appropriate.

After that 2011 Sharp J. judgment and Anders Breivik's mass killings - in the same week - in which it was SO obvious he knew me from the 'Brentwood' connection and that his reading about me for 11 years in the Norwegian press surely encouraged him to hate Muslims even more and embark on a murder spree I delivered your colleague Mr Reyes a copy of my book (Waterstones sell it) on Norway for him to review - after his ludicrous piece in the Gazette stating 'Norway had the right policies in place' re Breivik and far-right Muslim-hating discourse. The one person who knew more than anyone about Breivik and Islamophobia in Norway was me. I was right next door to you as well - working as a Solicitor in Lincoln's Inn. BUT I did not even get a call from Mr Reyes. Reason? Surely that I was Muslim and we are so obviously below stairs.

The Norwegian Police Ministry who I sued thought they had got away with it thanks to Mrs Justice Sharp's iniquitous judgment. But no! The Ministry in Oslo was blown up in the same week as Sharp's judgment was handed down and their lawyer, Christian Reusch, who instructed Charles Russell was so badly injured he was off work for the next 16 months. My sworn enemy Verdens Gang newspaper had their own offices wrecked by Breivik's car bomb too. The Norwegian Police Chief and the Minister of Justice both resigned. IF they had heeded my repeated warnings in 2005 and onwards about mainstream Islamophobia in Norway (after those Essex Police acknowledged hate-crime emails sent to me and referred to Interpol and Knut Storberget Minister of Justice in 2006) then if Breivik had sent me one of those emails and the Norwegian Police obliged the Essex Police by investigating the senders of those vile emails Breivik may, just may, have been apprehended and might have been stopped from commiting mass-murder later on. BUT no! Because of my website Norwayuncovered.com and my 2003 conviction for it I was persona non grata.

The arrogant establishment bigots always think they are immune. Not so was it for the Norwegian Ministry, the Minister, their lawyer and Verdens Gang newspaper? In one minute it was all a living hell after Breivik's bomb. Indeed in the same week as your own inaccurate Gazette story on me the Gazette offices were nearly raised to the ground by a fire.

So would you be kind enough to give me a right of reply in the Gazette by publishing in full this email and the one below to the SRA? I will give you a call.

Kind regards,
Farid El Diwany
(Retired Solicitor)

____________________________

From: Farid El Diwany
Date: Mon, 11 May 2020, 09:45
Subject: Islamophobia and SRA integrity
To: Georgina Smith @ the SRA
Cc: Paul Philip @ the SRA

Dear Ms Smith,

Please take this communication as a complaint against the SRA regarding its failure to recognise it's own Islamophobia when prosecuting me for failing to inform the SRA about my two trumped-up manufactured Norwegian convictions.

1. Once the SRA had my Caselines response on the matter it should have arranged for an agreed outcome of a nominal penalty of say a month's suspension. A slap on the wrist for a minor breach of the rules given the overwhelming duplicity of the Norwegian state prosecutor in the two prosecutions. Mr Johal and those instructing him at the SRA should have had the integrity to recognise that those two convictions were completely Islamophobic in nature as arranged for by the Norwegian State. Such prosecutions would never happen in Britain. Post-Breivik those prosecutions would never have been instituted.

The Norwegian state prosecutor adopted the Muslim-hating abuse their press had been inflicting on me for the six years before my first conviction in 2001 and the nine years before my second conviction. The Norwegian Penal Code had provision for recognising that the abuse allowed me a right of reply by way of Section 390 of the Penal Code which is what my lawyer Harald Wibye argued before the Magistrate in 2001. He read the newspaper articles out to the Magistrate who then knew that by the press calling me an "insane sex-terrorist Muslim abuser" all solely on the word of Heidi Schøne, surely allowed me to make public my accuser Heidi Schøne's own life history and sexual history and that she was herself a registered mental patient. The Magistrate should have recognised that the case of Handyside v. United Kingdom (1979-1980) allowed information to be made public even if it upset a segment of the population and was written in forthright language. The Magistrate should have had the integrity to change the charge to one under Section 390 allowing a defence of justified comment. The same goes for the 2003 conviction which was a similar contravention merely for my website norwayuncovered.com.

Harald Wibye told me that if I turned up to the 2001 hearing I seriously risked a sentence of imprisonment. And moreover Heidi Schøne would not turn up if I attended, preventing any cross-examination. But if I did not turn up I only risked a fine and suspended sentence under Section 390(a) of the Norwegian Penal Code. If I appealed I would "definitely go to prison" was his later advice. So I did not appeal. This scenario would never happen in Britain.

2. The SRA have failed to state the very obvious. That any police officer in the U.K who acted towards me like Police Sergeant Torill Sorte did in Norway would be sacked and imprisoned. Sorte was the main State witness against me in the 2001 Magistrate's Court case, having already in 1997 perjured herself by signing a Witness Statement (on Caselines) saying my mother told her I had been sectioned "on one occasion" in a mental hospital. An appaling lie. As I had not been sectioned at all then my mother could not have told Torill Sorte this. Sorte then compounds her iniquity in 2005 by telling 250,000 Dagbladet readers that my mother sectioned me for "two years in 1992" and "when he came out he was worse than ever". The newspaper called me "Muslim" and Heidi Schøne was quoted saying that I wanted her (two year old) son "to die and in other countries such a threat would be severely punished". The "threat" was an earlier alleged threat to kill the child (who I adored). Then immediately came those vile, sexualised Islamophobic emails declared a hate-crime by the Essex Police and sent to Interpol Norway. Outcome? The Essex Police are still 15 years later demanding an explanation and investigation by the Norwegian Police ... who are protecting the catalyst for the emails being sent: Police Sergeant Torill Sorte and Heidi Schøne as the senders of the emails believed their press allegations. In failing to voluntarily condemn Police Sergeant Torill Sorte and Heidi Schøne and the Norwegian Press for their direct roles in this Islamophobic and xenophobic abuse the SRA and SDT lack integrity and are Islamophobic.

3. It is a red-herring and disingenuous for the SRA to argue that it was up to Mrs Justice Sharp and not the SRA to declare Police Sergeant a liar. The place of "utmost integrity" in public life and judicial decision making applies equally to the SRA in its role as a judicial decision maker on the conduct of Solicitors. Mrs Justice Sharp is a bigot and Islamophobe. She clearly protected Torill Sorte. Any judge who - refuses to condemn those sick emails - sent to me thanks only to defendant Torill Sorte - read out to him or her in Court, for example: "Go fuck Allah the Camel" and "I seriously doubt that anything other than a pig would take your semen" and "When you eat pigs do you lick the pig's arsehole clean before digging in" and "I was once a Muslim but when I realised that [the Prophet] Muhammad was a confused paedophile I knew that a true God would never speak to such a looney" and "When people made love to your bum in the mental ward ..." - is UNFIT to be a member of the judiciary. Mrs Justice Sharp saw the 11 years of Islamophobic abuse I received in Norway in the Press. She saw that Morten Øverbye the Dagbladet journalist who interviewed Torill Sorte for the 2005 story called Torill Sorte "a no-brainer liar" in 2007 for saying I had been sectioned for two years when it was clear that I had not been. Yet Mrs Justice Sharp rules that I have been "harassing" Torill Sorte for calling her a liar and a cheat. A clear lack of integrity and Islamophobia from Mrs Justice Sharp which the SRA themselves failed to voluntarily mention. Ergo the SRA lack integrity and are Islamophobic for not recognising earlier judicial Islamophobia. The Met Police (Detective A.M) had the integrity to voluntarily tell me that if a British newspaper printed 'Muslim man" nineteen times in one article as Bergens Tidende on me on 24 May 1995, then they would be prosecuted. The Essex Police have accepted the Islamophobic nature of the Norwegian Press as well. So has Lord Pickles who supports my campaign to get the Judicial Conduct Rules changed. BUT the cowardly SRA and SDT stay silent on a matter well within their ambit and capabilities to comment on. They are NOT statute-barred from commenting. But they strike me off the Solicitor's Roll for "crossing the line".

4. The SRA and Mr Johal and the SDT lacked the integrity to even read the 19 or so Islamophobic Norwegian Press articles on me to assess the DEGREE of provocation FROM Heidi Schøne by her own comments in those articles. The SDT said Heidi Schøne was not responsible for what the newspapers said. WRONG! She was quoted ad nauseum. Therefore I could not have "crossed the line" by SIMPLY telling the general public in Norway of my abuser's past history. For the SDT to declare that I "lacked insight" into my actions is negligent and Islamophobia by stealth. So I cannot respond to 1995 and 1998 Heidi Schøne comments to one million Norwegians that I am an insane sex abuser who threatened to kill her, her son and her neighbours?

5. Now Capsticks endorse these blatant shortcomings. Capsticks are therefore also lacking in integrity and are Islamophobic. Indeed it is the SRA's inability to recognise it's own Islamophobia that is the root of the problem. A Muslim will recognise Islamophobia straight away. As did Sajid Javid as Chancellor when asking Boris Johnson on national television to investigate Islamophobia in the Conservative Party. A Muslim employee at the SRA would have recognised that the decision of the Norwegian State prosecutor to prosecute me under Section 390(a) was Islamophobic. Section 390 allowing a defence of justified comment was the appropriate section to charge me under if at all. A Muslim at the SRA would have read my book and website to see the truth of what happened. So would a Muslim on the SDT Panel. So would a Muslim judge in the place of Mrs Justice Sharp. The British Police are WAY AHEAD of the SRA in combatting Islamophobic abuse. The British Police had the integrity to VOLUNTARILY acknowledge Islamophobic abuse. The Norwegian Police do not. Police Officer Torill Sorte does not. Twenty-five years later the Norwegian Police STILL will not apologise for their Press's Islamophobic abuse and prosecute them. YET the SRA rely on as FAIR the Norwegian judicial processes in prosecuting me for merely uttering words which were NOT unsolicited. Islamophobia is the last acceptable form of racism in U.K judicial institutions.

6. It is just as well I did not report the two convictions to the SRA given the hell they have put me through now. To not self-report two convictions based solely on Islamophobic abuse does not show a "lack of integrity". It indicates the wisdom to realise that Norwegian state sponsored Islamophobia should be given no oxygen by reporting it to an eagerly Islamophobic SRA. To let an incompetent SRA and SDT adjudicate in 2001 and 2003, who can't even be bothered to read my book which Waterstones sell, would, it is now obvious, have been a very stupid thing to do. I had a living to earn and litigation to pursue in Norway. Being suspended or struck off by the SDT would have prevented all that as I needed my Solicitor's income. To accuse me of a lack of integrity and at the same time to voluntarily fail to accuse Police Sergeant Torill Sorte and Mrs Justice Sharp of a lack of integrity is hypocritical and indicates a lack of integrity.

7. The Courts need to decide on whether the SRA and SDT are competent to deal with and properly assess vile Islamophobic abuse which provokes a Solicitor to exercise article 10 ECHR rights. At present there are no Muslims adjudicating on my case or my complaints with the SRA. A rule should be introduced to ensure that when a Muslim solicitor alleges Islamophobia then the SRA be obliged to install a Muslim to assess the allegation and the SDT have a Muslim on the Panel. The non-Muslim members at the SRA and on the SDT Panels in all probability see the Prophet Muhammad as an imposter and a false prophet. The bias is there to begin with. I am certain that if I was Jewish as is Mrs Justice Sharp then she would have condemned those emails if they had instead gone on about Moses or Abraham being a looney paedophile or said for example: "Hey dirty Jew go f*ck yourself in the gas chamber after you put your semen in a pig's arse".

Regards,
Farid El Diwany