On a summer night in July 2008, Commander Ali Dizaei decided to take a break from his duties as a senior police officer and fighting his own force over race – a combination he had become used to juggling since joining the Metropolitan police in 2001.
Dizaei and his wife, Shy, went to Yas, a Persian restaurant in west London run by an old friend of his.
Dizaei could have had no inkling that, within hours of finishing his meal, a series of bizarre events would unfold, taking him into the dock of Southwark crown court and making him the most senior police officer in modern times to face criminal charges.
The 47-year-old Scotland Yard commander and his wife left the restaurant and went to their car, where they sat talking to the restaurant owner, Sohrab Eshragi, through an open window.
During their conversation, 24-year-old Waad al-Baghdadi, a website designer, crossed their path.
There was no dispute that a row broke out, but it was for the jury to decide what was said by whom, whether the police officer used his position to bully Baghdadi or whether the web designer had threatened Dizaei and his wife.
The criminal case against Dizaei boiled down to one question – whether the jury believed the word of a senior police officer or that of the man he arrested.
The crown's case was presented by one of Britain's top criminal prosecutors, Peter Wright QC, who had led the cases against the Suffolk serial killer of sex workers, and terrorists who plotted to set off liquid bombs on board planes heading to North America from Britain.
Wright told the jury Dizaei had engaged in "wholesale abuse" of his powers by bullying, threatening and intimidating a man in the culmination of a personal vendetta.
He said Dizaei had falsely arrested Baghdadi, claiming he had threatened him and stabbed him with the end of a shisha pipe during a scuffle.
Furthermore, Wright said a medical examiner called in by police concluded that the injuries suffered by the officer were more likely to have been self-inflicted.
Dizaei was charged with threatening and falsely arresting Baghdadi, who claimed the Met commander had failed to pay £600 for a website he had designed for him.
The policeman detained Baghdadi, called 999 for help and maintained his account, both at the scene and after Baghdadi was in custody, by making verbal and written statements.
He said the officer's account was contradicted by a 999 call Baghdadi made, during which Dizaei arrested him.
The crown said its case was supported by CCTV footage and other evidence, and Wright told the jury: "These are allegations, we say, that involve the wholesale abuse of power by a senior police officer for entirely personal and oblique motives."
In the witness box, Baghdadi claimed that, when he came across Dizaei and his wife, he talked normally. But he said the officer had become enraged, left the car and squared up to him on the pavement.
He told the jury Dizaei had challenged him to a fight and then ordered him to leave the restaurant after he had gone in for a meal.
Baghdadi said he had left but then called 999 before staying in the area.
Then Dizaei drove up and proceeded to arrest Baghdadi, during which time he was alleged to have told him: "I'll fuck your life."
CCTV footage of the scene showed parts of the incident but, in the absence of eyewitnesses, the only direct evidence that Dizaei had made any threats came from Baghdadi.
The web designer told the jury he saw Dizaei as a gangster "like Tony Montana", the mob boss from the film Scarface.
Set against this was evidence from the officer's wife that Baghdadi's verbal tirade had left her terrified and that he had said he would "extract the money out of your throat".
The restaurant owner told the jury Baghdadi was "a crook basically", adding: "His history ... everybody knows he's not a good gentleman."
Eshragi said that, far from Dizaei intimidating Baghdadi by ordering him out of the restaurant, he had urged him to ask the web designer to leave because he feared a fight might break out.
"I was worried about this man [Baghdadi]. He was in a fight before and disappeared before the police arrived," Eshragi said.
The crown's claim that Dizaei had wounded himself, for which it relied on a police doctor, was challenged by Dr Nat Cary, one of the country's leading forensic pathologists who has worked on many high-profile cases including the death of Benazir Bhutto and the case of Ian Tomlinson, the newspaper seller who died at last year's G20 protest.
Cary said the claim was based on a "fundamentally flawed approach" to forensic medicine.
"He [Dizaei] alleges he has been poked with the shisha pipe," he said. "In my view, that's consistent [with the injuries]."
Commander Ali Dizaei of London's Metropolitan Police Service today became the most senior officer anywhere in the United Kingdom to be convicted of offences by a court. Dizaei, who was branded a "criminal in uniform" by Independent Police Complaints Commission chair Nick Hardwick, has been jailed for four years after he attempted to frame an Iraqi businessman.

It took a Southwark Crown Court jury under three hours to find Dizaei guilty of misconduct in a public office and attempting to pervert the course of justice. The charges carried a maximum of life imprisonment.

Dizaei, 47, who is head of the National Black Police Association, had gone to the Yas Persian restaurant, run by one of his friends, and taken his wife Shy with him. They then went to their car and struck up a conversation through its open window with the restaurant's manager. During this conversation they were approached by Waad al-Baghdadi, an Iraqi website designer in his twenties. He requested that Dizaei pay £600 that he owed Baghdadi, who had constructed his website.

According to the Crown, this dispute had been ongoing for months and Dizaei had been attempting to intimidate Baghdadi. He told the Iraqi to depart when he entered the restaurant; although the businessman did, he stayed nearby and rang the 999 emergency number.

The exact content of the argument that led up to this is unclear. Dizaei and his wife testified that Baghdadi was abusive and threatening, telling the officer he would "extract the money out of your throat" while the owner of the Yas said he was "a crook basically... His history ... everybody knows he's not a good gentleman," said owner Sohrab Eshragi. Eshragi said that the request Baghdadi leave the premises was due to concerns of trouble, claiming Baghdadi had been in a previous fight. Baghdadi denied the allegations and the court rejected Dizaei's version of events.

While Baghdadi was making his emergency call, Dizaei arrested him and made a 999 call of his own. He requested assistence from other officers, and said that Baghdadi had assaulted him by stabbing his stomach with a shisha pipe. He maintained this account when police arrived and kept it up in written statements, but although Baghdadi was found to be carrying such a pipe examination of Dizaei's wounds by a police doctor concluded he had inflicted them upon himself. 

A Home Office pathologist questioned this finding for the defence. Dr. Nat Cary said it was based on a "fundamentally flawed approach," and that the injuries were consistent with Dizaei's version of events. He has helped investigate the assassination of former Pakistani PM Benazir Bhutto, and the death newspaper seller Ian Thomlinson, the latter of whom died during a G20 protest.

The Crown further alleged that Dizaei told Baghdadi "I'll fuck your life... You think I don't know what you do in London... I'll find every single detail of your life in London." The prosecution case was presented by Peter Wright QC, who has prosecuted in trials over serial murders of Suffolk sex workers and a plot to bomb transatlantic airliners. He said that Dizaei's actions were a "wholesale abuse of power by a senior police officer for entirely personal and oblique motives."

Judge Justice Simon said that Dizaei had committed a "grave breach of public trust" and told him "This sentence needs to send a clear message that police officers of whatever rank are not above the law." A Crown Prosecution Service spokesman said outside the court that "He abused his power and ignored his responsibility," and that while corruption was unacceptable in any police officer it was particularly so in a senior member of the forces. "The public should have confidence that we will prosecute anyone, regardless of their position, if they commit serious offences. We believe justice has been served for the victim and the public." 

"If he Dizaei had been successful, Mr al-Baghdadi may have been sent to prison," noted Hardwick. "Mr al-Baghdadi has shown tremendous strength of character throughout this case ‑ from the moment he was confronted by Ali Dizaei, throughout our investigation, and finally when giving evidence at court. We are grateful for the confidence he placed in the IPCC and, as a result of that, justice has been done today."

Dizaei has been a policeman for 24 years, and at one stage was rumoured to be destined to take control of the Metropolitan Police, although the Metropolitan Police Authority may now choose to end this career. His trial, which began this month, is his second this decade. He was prosecuted in 2003 but cleared of any wrongdoing. The incident with Baghdadi was in June 2008 and Dizaei has been suspended on full pay since September of that year. Hardwick said that "The greatest threat to the reputation of the police service is criminals in uniform like Dizaei."