The UK Independence Party was left red-faced today after its spokesman admitted being the "boss" of a kidnapping gang in Pakistan and was jailed for five years.
Mujeeb ur Rehman Bhutto's gang were behind a high-profile kidnapping in Karachi in 2004 and he then took a 56,000 pounds ransom payment in Manchester, BBC reported
In 2005, Bhutto, of Leeds, admitted being the gang's "boss" and was jailed for seven years by a UK court.
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UK Independence Party (UKIP), which wants Britain to leave the European Union, said Bhutto, 35, had "recently" resigned his party membership.
A party spokesman said: "When we recently became aware of possible issues relating to his past and raised the matter with him, he resigned his membership."
Bhutto joined UKIP in 2011 and regularly appeared as UKIP's Commonwealth spokesman, and as a party representative in local and national media. He said he had left the party in December 2013.
He organised a trip to a Leeds mosque for party leader Nigel Farage and, during the 2012 Rotherham by-election, canvassed with UKIP candidate Jane Collins.
Bhutto told BBC's Newsnight he had admitted the charges against him in 2005 rather than risk being sent back to Pakistan and hanged.
"The evidence which was brought against me was from Pakistan. The allegation was simply because of political rivalry," he said.
Bhutto said he had been granted political asylum in the UK in 2008 and that the case against him in Pakistan had been thrown out by the country's Supreme Court.
