Mazher Mahmood: the 'fake sheikh' whose investigations divided opinion

http://www.theguardian.com/media/2014/jul/21/mazher-mahmood-fake-sheikh-investigations

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Mazher Mahmood was 21 when he bought his first "fake sheikh" outfit for £12 from an Islamic bookshop in Birmingham. It was 1984, he was a freelance reporter working for the Sunday People and his target was a prostitution racket at a hotel next door to the annual Motor Show at the National Exhibition Centre. He carried off the white robes, worry beads and oil-rich Arab impersonation and soon a senior porter was ushering prostitutes to his room. The exposé launched a 30-year career as the country's most famous and controversial undercover reporter, operating with an entourage of bodyguards, assistants and even three stand-in sheikhs.

Mahmood was the son of a journalist who pioneered the first Urdu-language newspaper in Britain and reporting came naturally. Just 17 years old, he pitched a story to the News of the World about a gang pirating VHS casettes. The Sunday tabloid snapped it up and later employed him for two decades as he executed stings on everyone from the Duchess of York to the then England football manager Sven Goran Eriksson and Princess Diana's butler Paul Burrell.

Mahmood divides opinion. The now retired libel judge Mr Justice Eady once described him as "hard-bitten and cynical", while his former editor at the News of the World Phil Hall said: "He was the most diligent reporter we had."

With the collapse of the trial of Tulisa Contostavlos, who was accused of setting up a cocaine deal with an undercover Mahmood for the Sun on Sunday, his 34-year career has hit one of its lowest points yet. The case has raised fresh questions about the ethics of "agent provocateur" activity and subterfuge by reporters.

Some stings have caused their targets acute embarassment. He went to a Spanish brothel with the Newcastle United chairman, Freddie Shepherd, and his deputy Douglas Hall and Shepherd called Newcastle women "dogs" and described the club's star striker Alan Shearer as "Mary Poppins". In 2010 Sarah Ferguson took a $40,000 downpayment as part of a deal to sell access to her former husband, the Duke of York.

Others have ended in jail terms. Mahmood has claimed his articles have led to 253 successful criminal prosecutions, although when the law firm Linklaters was asked to investigate this claim during the Leveson inquiry into the press, it only found 134 different criminal offences. In 2010 he exposed Test match fixing by Pakistani players that rocked international cricket. Mahmood told Leveson subterfuge "gets to the truth more effectively than any other form of journalism". "There have been allegations [that] I encourage individuals to commit offences which they would not have done had it not been for my concealing my identity and pressing them into committing an offence," he said. "I strongly dispute this interpretation of the way I work."

The question of provocation is never far away. In 2001, the London's Burning soap actor John Alford was jailed for supplying cocaine and cannabis to Mahmood, posing as an Arabian prince. The judge told Alford: "There was a strong element of entrapment but you willingly went along with the idea." Alford complained about the entrapment to the European courts but lost.

Besnik Qema, an Albanian immigrant, was arrested in February 2005 following a sting operation masterminded by Mahmood. He was sentenced to four and a half years in jail for drugs and passport offences. Qema was contacted via an Albanian-language internet chatroom by a woman called "Aurora". Unknown to Qema, Aurora was a male associate operating on behalf of Mahmood. The convictions were quashed on appeal. Mahmood insists Qema "freely volunteered to commit criminal offences". Hall, Mahmood's editor at the News of the World from 1995 to 2000, said he was "dogged".

"He would spend weeks and months undercover, putting his life at risk," Hall said. "It was what he lived for. I tried to get him to focus on serious investigations. He was the first journalist to say Osama bin Laden was the most dangerous man in the world. He exposed Chinese triads, match-fixing in cricket and horse racing and how terrorists were training young men in Afghanistan. They were serious and worthy investigations."

A former colleague praised his "comprehensive and robust" approach and Mahmood has always tried to stress the social purpose of his work.

"The life of a fake sheikh where I disguise myself as a multimillionaire Arab with full robes and an entourage of flunkies isn't all five-star hotels, limos, yachts and dining with the rich and famous," he said in 2008 in an interview to mark the launch of his memoir, Confessions of a Fake Sheikh. "I'm more likely to be in a crack den nailing drug dealers or exposing arms dealers, paedophiles and corrupt politicians."