The former convict is claiming that he is owed almost £2,000 after being ‘deeply offended’ by the sign
A convicted terrorist has moved to sue a pub after being offended by the sign on display outside the venue.
The man, who has spent four years in jail for creating Jihadi propaganda, has sued a Buckinghamshire pub, requesting nearly £2,000 from the Saracen’s Head Inn in Chesham, a small town of just over 23,000 residents.
Named Khalif Baqa, he said that he was ‘deeply offended’ by what he called a racist ‘depiction of a bearded Arab/Turk’, accusing them of inciting ‘violence’.
Baqa spent almost five years in prison (Metropolitan Police)
Baqa has asked for £1,850 from the landlord of the pub, and said that he will also take on 30 other pubs in court that have the same name if he succeeds.
Landlord Robbie Hayes, 52, has branded the lawsuit as a ‘complete joke’, speaking to The Sun to voice his frustrations.
“This has been called The Saracen’s Head for 500 years,” he highlighted
“He’s just chancing his hand. Of course it worries me – you never know with people like this.”
The Brit insisted that none of his customers were racist, and that he didn’t believe the the name or sign of the pub were offensive, explaining that they were ‘historic’.
Baqa has now filed a ‘claim of money’ and sent it to county court, believing that he is owed an amount of cash for what he saw.
This was brought up in a small claims court, and in his submission, he explained that the sign, which showed a brown-skinned man of Arab and Turkish descent, was clearly racist.
He said that it ‘instilled worry and fear in me since it was clearly xenophobic, racist and inciting violence to certain people.’
The former convict claims that he tried to get in the pub four times, even physically showing up, though staff have no recollection of it.
As for Baqa’s past crimes, he was behind bars for a total of four years and eight months after admitting five counts of dissemination of Terrorist publications.
Also speaking to The Sun, he said that he had always been offended by pub names such as this, and pointed out that the term was used until the fifth century to refer to Arabs, and Muslims later in history.
The name is one of the most popular pub names in the country though.
It’s up there with the likes of the Red Lion, and though the name references the time of the crusades, about 800-1000 years ago, this pub was built in 1530, just 500 years ago.
