A British individual accused of physically assaulting British lawmaker George Galloway is due to appear in a London court.
Neil Masterson, a former BBC manager, appearead before court on Monday on the charge of carrying out a religiously-aggravated assault.
The BBC said that the attacker “has admitted beating MP George Galloway in a west London street but denied his attack was religiously aggravated.”
Masterson, an alleged Zionist, denied the charge during an initial hearing held on September 1 at Hammersmith Magistrates’ Court.
The former BBC manager is said to have shouted about the Holocaust before repeatedly punching Galloway in west London two weeks ago.
Galloway was taken to hospital after the attack for treatment of severe bruising on his face and head and a broken rib and was kept at the infirmary overnight.
The attack on the British lawmaker is believed to have been connected to his recent remarks censuring the Israeli regime for the atrocities it committed in its recent military onslaught on the besieged Gaza Strip. Galloway has described Masterson as a pro-Israel fanatic.
“It is an attack on parliament, it is an attack on democracy and it is an attack on my constituents, not just the geographic constituency of Bradford West, though it is, but the wider constituency that I speak for, which is, by anybody’s reckoning, some millions of people, all of whom have the right to be represented, all of whom have the right to have their view represented without being clubbed down in the street,” Galloway said.
This is while the serious criminal offense against the British MP has largely been ignored by UK officials and most of his peers in the country’s parliament.
Galloway has criticized Westminster’s silence on the violent incident.
