A solicitor has been suspended after posting on Facebook that Israelis should be shot dead and that a plane carrying Jewish refugees should be blown up.

In October 2015 Majid Mahmood, at the time a solicitor at Luton firm City Law Chambers and now at Liberty Law Solicitors in the same town, saw a video showing alleged war crimes by the Israeli Defence Force. He posted “somebody needs to shoot all the Israeli Zionists dead then send their bodies to America as a present for Obama and his Zionist pals.” When a member of the public suggested that the SRA would take a dim view of this, he replied:

“Yeah feel free to report me. Don’t see you saying much about the atrocities committed by the Zionist’s. It’s freedom of speech. But Funny how after having views the killing of innocent children and the systematic assassination of people by a nation that is fuelled by greed all you can do is threaten me that you would report me to the SRA. Don’t read my comments if you don’t like them.”

He was indeed reported. And he was reported again in February 2016 when he wrote of a plane carrying Jewish refugees:

“The ain’t gods chosen people they’re Satans love child’s and it’s a sham e the plane carrying them didn’t blow up mid air.”

And he responded to another post:

“Condoning… Read the words, but as a typical Zionist Israeli tear you can try and twist the words. Mad don’t threaten me go and fuck yourself.”

A swivel-eyed loon yesterday

Mahmood admitted that the comments were anti-Zionist but denied that they were anti-Semitic. He tried the line that some of his best friends were Jewish, naming a couple of barristers whom he knew as proof, although the tribunal noted that neither of them had written in to support him.

The SDT found that Mahmood's comment regarding the plane was indeed anti-Semitic - it was "despicable" and "derogatory and religiously offensive". It suspended him for 12 months and fined him £25,000.

A spokesman for Liberty Law Solicitors failed to respond to requests for comment.