Mahamoud Ahmed rejected an offer of £50,000 and having his job back

A Qatari official accused of calling a receptionist a “black slave” looks likely to lose a tribunal case today in a shift towards the end of diplomatic immunity.

Abdullah Ali al-Ansari, a diplomat at the Gulf state’s London embassy, is accused of racially abusing a receptionist, Mahamoud Ahmed, and calling him a dog. Mr Ahmed was sacked in 2013.

Mr Ansari was protected by diplomatic immunity until a series of rulings starting with a Court of Appeal judgment in 2015 began to change the law. Two years later the Supreme Court ruled that it was incompatible with the European Convention on Human Rights for diplomats to claim immunity from employment law. The judgment gave the green light for Mr Ahmed’s case to be heard.

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