Two men with links to Coventry and Bedworth have denied taking part in a conspiracy to attack two Pakistani dissidents at their homes, the Old Bailey heard on Friday.
Clark McCaulay, 39, from Coventry, and Karl Blackbird, 41, from Bedworth, were among six men who appeared in court and denied charges relating to an alleged plot to assault human rights lawyer Mirza Shahzad Akbar and journalist Adil Raja.
Mr Akbar previously served in the cabinet of jailed former Pakistani prime minister Imran Khan, while Mr Raja is a vocal critic of the current Pakistani government, having written extensively on alleged corruption within the country’s military.
McCaulay and Blackbird each denied conspiracy to assault Mr Raja and cause him actual bodily harm. Blackbird also denied the equivalent charge in relation to Mr Akbar, alongside three other defendants, Louis Regan, 26, his father Mark Regan, 53, both of Birmingham, and Liam McGarry, 26.
Prosecutors allege that groups of hired attackers travelled to the homes of both men with the intention of assaulting them simultaneously at 8am on Christmas Eve last year.
A sixth defendant, Dylan Martin, 33, denied a charge of attempted arson at Mr Akbar’s home, as well as possession of a revolver, in connection with a separate incident in Cambridgeshire on New Year’s Eve last year.
Two further defendants linked to the case, Asid Afsar, 40, of Birmingham, and Doneto Brammer, 22, of London, are yet to enter pleas and will do so at a later hearing, the court was told.
All six men were remanded in custody following Friday’s hearing.
McCaulay, along with the Regans, Blackbird and McGarry, is due to stand trial at Nottingham Crown Court on January 12, 2027. Martin and Brammer will face trial at the same court on March 8, 2027.
The case will be followed closely in Coventry and Bedworth given the local connections of two of the defendants, as proceedings continue ahead of next year’s trial dates.
Image: Old Bailey. Photo by: https://www.flickr.com/photos/duncanh1/ CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/
