Man accused of assaulting police at airport ‘headbutted traveller'
Mohammed Fahir Amaaz, 20 allegedly got 'in the face' of traveller Abdulkareem Ismaeil and head-butted him in a Starbucks at Terminal Two before police were called, Liverpool Crown Court was told on Friday.
Police traced Amaaz and his brother, Muhammad Amaad, 26, who were leaving the airport after picking up their mother from a flight from Qatar.
It was alleged that the brothers used a 'high level of violence' and assaulted three officers who arrived to arrest them as they paid for parking. Jurors were shown CCTV.
The brothers have denied the charges against them from 23 July last year.
Mr Ismaeli had been on the same flight as the defendant's mother where 'something happened' which upset her, the jury heard. He had been with his wife, two young daughters and young son in Starbucks while leaving the terminal when the defendant's mother passed by and pointed him out to her sons.
The manager of the Starbucks, Cameron Carledge, overheard 'raised voices' while doing paperwork in his office, when he went to the door and saw his colleague prepared the order for Mr Ismaeil at the counter. He saw another man, wearing a blue track-suit, identified as Amaaz, 'quite close to him, shouting at him'.
Mr Carledge said the shouting was in a foreign language he did not understand.
'At the time of the arguing he was very close to him, like in his face,' the witness said. 'Blue track-suit man seemed quite aggressive, obviously annoyed about something, I don't know what. Blue track-suit man was aggressively shouting.
'Because his body language, his tone of voice was quite aggressive.'
Mr Carledge continued that Mr Ismaeili raised his voice in a more defensive than aggressive way.
'There was arguing, I don't know what was being said, then blue track-suit man head butted the man we see in the black,' he continued. 'He got him in the face. It did not look like it hurt Mr Ismaeil much but it was forceful enough to make him stagger back into the counter.'
The Starbucks manager said that before the two men were spit up, Amaaz threw two punches but he thought they landed on Mr Ismaeil's shoulder. He then called the police.
Mr Carledge said, working at the airport, he saw people 'arguing all the time' but, after witnessing the headbutt, called police.
Amaaz denies one count of assault to Mr Ismaeli and three counts of assault occasioning actual bodily harm to PC Zachary Marsden, PC Ellie Cook and PC Lydia Ward. His brother Amaad denies one count of assault occasioning actual bodily harm to PC Marsden.
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