AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE,
LONDON: The Royal Navy has appointed its first non-white admiral, Pakistan-born Muslim immigrant Amjad Hussain, a British newspaper said Friday.
Rear Admiral Hussain, 47, is the highest-ranking ethnic officer among the 200,000 personnel of the British armed forces, The Sun said.
“I count myself very lucky to live in a country where the opportunities have been beyond my imagination,” said Hussain, who moved to Britain from northern Pakistan with his mother in 1962.
He showed Diana, the princess of Wales around his frigate HMS Cornwall in 1989 and escorted Queen Elizabeth II on the Antarctic patrol vessel HMS Endurance as she reviewed the fleet off the southern English coast in June.
“Like most people I've just got on with my job. I would hate to think anybody would get promoted because of their ethnic origin,” the father of three told The Sun, Britain's biggest-selling daily.
“Occasionally you used to get the odd stupid bout of name-calling but that was more in the early days.
“But it never affected me, or made any difference to my job really. When people got to know me, all pre-conceptions disappeared.”
Rear Admiral is the fourth-highest rank possible in the Royal Navy, equivalent to a major-general in the Army or an Air Vice-Marshal in the Royal Air Force.
