Mohammed Fahir Amaaz, 21, and his elder brother Muhammad Amaad, 26, rained repeated blows on PC Zachary Marsden as he attempted to arrest Amaaz in the parking payment area at Terminal Two in July 2024, according to court testimony. The CCTV footage, shown to the jury, depicted the violence flaring when officers moved to detain Amaaz, including a punch that broke the nose of unarmed officer PC Lydia Ward. Amaaz also hit armed officer PC Ellie Cook with a flurry of blows, and jurors saw Amaaz being wrestled to the floor after aiming punches at PC Cook, along with a kick by PC Marsden at Amaaz's head while he was on the ground.
The altercation followed an earlier incident where Amaaz was found guilty of assaulting Qatari citizen Abdulkareem Ismaeil in a Starbucks cafe minutes before. The brothers had gone to the airport to meet their mother on a flight from Pakistan via Qatar, and something happened between her and Ismaeil that made her unhappy, though the exact nature remains unclear. When the mother pointed out Ismaeil in the cafe, Amaaz confronted him, headbutting him in the face and striking further blows, leading police to intervene and attempt an arrest that sparked the brawl.
Amaaz was previously convicted at a trial last year for assaulting PCs Cook and Ward, but the jury could not reach a verdict on both brothers regarding the alleged assault on PC Marsden. At a retrial, Amaaz claimed he acted in self-defence when striking PC Marsden, while Amaad asserted he was defending his brother. Both men, from Rochdale, Greater Manchester, pleaded not guilty to assaulting PC Marsden, with the outcome of the retrial yet to be confirmed.