Borough Council in 1994 and served until 2002 representing Brierfield ward. Member of the European Parliament, 2004–2019 Karim was elected to represent North West England in 2004 as a Liberal Democrat. On 26 November 2007 he joined the Conservative Party and was re-elected to the European Parliament in June 2009. In May 2014 he was re-elected to serve a third term. Despite being top of the Conservative party list he was not re-elected in 2019. He is interested in human rights issues, including child labour and the civil liberties of EU citizens in the War on Terror. He led the successful European Union contribution to the campaign for the commutation of the death penalty of British man, Mirza Tahir Hussain, who had spent half of his life on death row in Pakistan, for a crime he maintains he did not commit. Karim has spoken out on a number of key human rights issues and in particular, campaigns for self-determination for Kashmir. He has hosted a number of conferences in the European Parliament on the issue. In 2013 he brought together Syrian opposition groups to try encourage a co-hesive strategy to the current regime. He has also been active on the issue of democracy in Egypt and civil rights in Turkey. On 26 November 2008, whilst visiting India as part of a European Parliament Committee on International Trade delegation (ahead of an EU-India summit), he was caught up in the Mumbai attacks in the lobby of the Taj Mahal Palace & Tower hotel. Speaking to the Associated Press while holed up in the hotel's restaurant shortly after the terrorists gained control of the hotel, Sajjad said "I was in the main lobby and there was all of a sudden a lot of firing outside...all of a sudden another gunmen appeared in front of us, carrying machine gun-type weapons. And he just started firing at us ... I just turned and ran in the opposite direction." In December 2009, he was appointed as the Legal Affairs Spokesperson for the Conservative Group in the European Parliament. He was reappointed to this front bench position in June 2014 following the European Elections in May. As well as serving as a full member of the Legal Affairs Committee (JURI), Sajjad was previously a substitute member of the Industry, Research and Energy Committee and the Civil Liberties and the Justice and Home Affairs Committee. He also