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February 8, 2006

UK: Islamist Cleric, Abu Hamza, Is Jailed, Guns Found At Mosque

Yesterday the radical Muslim cleric, Abu Hamza, real name Mustafa Kamel Mustafa, was found guilty of incitement to murder, and was given a jail sentence of 7 years. As he has already spent some time in detention, and due to Britain's bizarre habit of halving prisoners' sentences in practice, Hamza could be out of jail in two years.

Mr Justice Hughes, the trial judge, told the jury before they gave their verdicts that Hamza had spoken in his sermons "with great anger, directed at virtually every country and at a very large number of people."

After the jury unanimously found him guilty on six of his nine charges of soliciting murder and three counts of inciting racial hatred, Justice Hughes told him "You used your authority to legitimise anger and to encourage your audiences to believe that it gave rise to a duty to murder. You commended suicide bombing, you encouraged them to kill in the cause you set out for them."

The judge noted that Hamza had "created a real danger to the lives of innocent people in different parts of the world", states the Times today.

The Times (and two other papers) have claimed that three of the suicide bombers of 7/7 last year, who killed 52 people between them in their attacks on London Transport, had been members of Hamza's Finsbury Park Mosque. Mohammad Sidique Khan, Shehzad Tanweer and Jermaine Lindsay all visited the mosque to hear Hamza's sermons.

Hamza's legal team, led by the hard-faced Mudrassa Anri, had attempted to have the trial halted, claiming the current cartoon row was prejudicing the case. The request was denied. After the case Arani said she would be appealing against the sentence. "Abu Hamza considers himself to be a prisoner of faith. He is subjected to slow martyrdom. We confirm he will appeal against the conviction," she said.

The Telegraph reports the surprising news that Scotland Yard has only now revealed publicly that they found an assortment of items during a raid at the Finsbury Park Mosque in 2003.

These included three starting pistols, which could easily be reassigned to firing live rounds, a stun gun, knives, CS gas and chemical and nuclear warfare protective suits. Also, hidden behind ceiling tiles, dozens of forged documents were discovered, including driving licences, passports (pictured above).

"It is the kind of material which could have been used at training camps, probably in the UK," a senior police source said. "Hamza clearly had a controlling influence at the mosque and the location where we found this equipment would have made it very difficult for him not to know it was there."

The jury were not told of the Finsbury Park Mosque's links with Zacarias Moussaoui, currently on trial in New York for his part in the 9/11 Twin Towers attack, nor shoe bombers Richard Reid and Saajid Badat, and Algerian Kamel Bourgass, who murdered Detective Constable Stephen Oake in 2003.

Whatever the hijab-clad apologist Mudassar Arani may say, Hamza is a monster, an embarrassment to both moderate Muslims and to Britain as a nation.

Last night on BBC's Newsnight, it was said that questions are now being raised with the police, about the 10 volume edition of the "Enclyclopedia of Afghani Jihad". This had been seized by police in a raid at Hamza's home previously, in 2002. Bizarrely, the police had then given the volumes back to Hamza, but yesterday he was convicted of its possession.

During the trial sentencing, the judge said he was "satisfied" that one volume of this "encyclopedia" was missing because it had been loaned out. The Encyclopedia recommended terrorist attacks on landmarks, including London's Big Ben, Paris' Eiffel Tower and the Statue of Liberty.

Hamza was given a sentence of three years for possession of this document, to run concurrently with the seven year sentence for soliciting murder.

The issue of radical Islam has now become a source of serious concern in parliament, especially following the outrageous displays outside the Danish Embassy of Muslim protesters on Friday, in which banners were displayed calling for death, butchery and a "European 9/11".

The Times makes a comparison between Hamza and Nick Griffin, head of the ultra-right British National Party (BNP). Griffin was acquitted on Friday of inciting racial hatred. Such comparisons are unnecessary. Griffin is an anti-Islamist, but he has not incited murder. As we reported earlier, Hamza's sermons explicitly condoned murder. Hamza's favourite targets whom he thought were deserving of death were Jews.

Lord Janner of Braunstone, vice-president of the World Jewish Congress, said "If the sentence meant seven years, that would be adequate and appropriate, but as it is likely to mean about two years, it is totally inadequate. I believe that what he has done has been a very serious series of racist offences."

We documented earlier some of Hamza's comments, such as "Killing an adulterer, even if he is a Muslim is OK. Killing a Kaffir (unbeliever) who is fighting you is OK. Killing a Kaffir for any reason you can say it is OK even if there is no reason for it."

Hamza had also said Allah that had described Jews as offspring of monkeys. He claimed Jews were the "first monkey and the first ape", claimed Darwin's grandfather was a Jew, which was why Charles Darwin "wanted to establish a link between human beings and monkeys."

An MP3 clip of the Darwin statement can be found here, and an audio of his open contempt for Jews can be found here.

Posted by Giraldus Cambrensis at February 8, 2006 4:56 AM

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