British Muslim cleric jailed for inciting murder
Abu Hamza sentenced to seven years; US will try to extradite.
Abu Hamza, the radical Muslim cleric who police say turned his Finsbury Park mosque in north London into a recruiting center for extremists, was sentenced to seven years in jail Tuesday.
The Daily Telegraph reports that a jury at the Old Bailey (London's main criminal court) found Mr. Hamza guilty of incitement to murder,
stirring up racial hatred, and possessing a document useful to terrorism.
Security sources described him as a key figure in the global Islamic terrorist movement. He was convicted on 11 of 15 charges after four days of deliberations by the jury.
Peter Clarke, the head of Scotland Yard's anti-terrorist branch, said the Finsbury Park Mosque, in north London, where the handless Hamza preached, was "almost like a honey pot for extremists". It had become a breeding ground for terrorism.
Under British law, once a charge is laid against an individual, often the evidence against him cannot be discussed in the media, so Wednesday was the first time many Britons discovered what security forces had found during raids on Hamza's mosque. The Telegraph reports that during a 2003 raid, police found "an arsenal of weapons and equipment which they believe were to be used in terrorist training camps in Britain." One of the main pieces of evidence used against Hamza was an "encyclopedia of Jihad," based on CIA training manuals provided to mujahideen fighters in Afghanistan the 1980s.
But it was also his preaching that helped convict Hamza on the incitement charge. Recordings
made of his sermons were played for the court and many British papers carried excerpts Wednesday.
In a two-hour video of an address given in 1997 or 1998 to a private meeting in Whitechapel, east London, Hamza said that Muslims living in this country "are living in a toilet and are living like animals." Hamza called on the audience to sacrifice itself and fight. He described the first stage as "bleeding the enemy."
"We ask Muslims to do that, to be capable to do that, to be capable to bleed the enemies of Allah anywhere, by any means. "You can't do it by nuclear weapon, you do it by the kitchen knife, no other solution. You cannot do it by chemical weapons, you have to do it by mice poison. Like you imagine you have one small knife and you have a big animal in front of you. The size of the knife – you cannot slaughter him with this. You have to stab him here and there until he bleeds to death. Then you can cut up the meat as you like to, or leave it to the maggots. This is the first stage of Jihad."
The Independent of London looks at
Hamza's life in Britain, from the time he first arrived in the early 80s from his native Egypt and worked as a hotel receptionist, including his early years as a young man who "liked dancing and music," through his five-year marriage to a British woman who encouraged him to study Islam. Then Hamza went to Afghanistan to fight the Russians. It was there that he says he lost both hands and an eye while clearing mines. He returned to England and in the '90s took over the Finsbury Park mosque.
Duncan Campbell of
The Guardian explains how it was during these later years that Hamza became "
one of the most hated" public figures in Britain.
The Guardian reports the British government will try to use the conviction of Hamza as a way to reintroduce proposals outlining
the glorification of terrorism. The proposals had been withdrawn late in 2005 after strong opposition from civil liberties groups in Britain and significant opposition in Prime Minister Tony Blair's governing Labour Party.
British police came under criticism following the conviction for not acting sooner against Hamza. A senior French intelligence agent told the Guardian that Britain has failed to take action for years despite being given evidence that clearly linked the cleric to terrorist activities. Many Muslims who had left the Finsbury Park mosque because of Hamza's radical opinions also went to the police about his activities, including a meeting to pledge allegiance to Osama bin Laden.
The
BBC reports that he was
eventually arrested in 2004 after an extradition request from the US in a case about an alleged terrorist training camp in Oregon, but that five months later he was charged under British law. The United States said it will still pursue its extradition request, although that probably won't take place until Hamza has served his time in Britain. Hamza is expected to be eligible for parole in 2008.
British police also said that, contrary to rumors in the press, there was no evidence linking Hamza to any of the four London bombers from last July.
Also...
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Republican who oversees NSA calls for wiretap inquiry (New York Times)
•
Strong leads and dead ends in nuclear case against Iran (Washington Post)
•
Israel unveils plan to encircle Palestinian state (Guardian)
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Tom Regan
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