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June 18, 2006

UK: Brighton Imam Wants Blair "Attacked"

The man pictured left is Abubaker Deghayes. He is an imam of the Alquds mosque, situated in a modest detached house (pictured below) in Brighton, Sussex, on Britain's south coast. 38-year old Abubaker Deghayes is a campaigner for his brother Omar, who is one of eight people from Britain still incarcerated in Guantanamo Bay. The local paper, the Brighton Argus is running an ongoing campaign to have Omar Deghayes freed from the US military compound on Cuba.

However, today's Sunday Times paints a not too rosy portrait of big brother Abubaker Deghayes, and with the help of an undercover reporter, some unpleasant truths about the leader of the Alquds mosque have emerged.

Abubaker Deghayes told the journalist that he supported the views of George Galloway, the MP from the Respect Party, who recently said that a suicide attack against Tony Blair would be "justified". Abubaker states that he prayed for "Allah to support anyone who attacked Blair".

The Times states that Dr Abduljalil Sajid, who was the former imam of the mosque, was forced out of the mosque by Deghayes and his supporters in a campaign of violence, intimidation and threats, which are recorded in court documents.

Sajid is head of the Muslim Council for Religious and Racial Harmony, and is a government adviser on Islam. Police confirm that "extremist literature" has been found at the mosque, and that some of its congregation are thought to have fought abroad.

Deghayes spoke to the undercover reporter about the moral legitimacy of Blair being attacked, and also said that it was legitimate for UK troops to be killed in Iraq. He said: "Under international law anybody who’s been invaded, they are entitled to self-defence...People in Iraq have every right to liberate themselves."

He warned the reporter not to speak openly as, under the 2006 Terrorism Act: "Now you can be taken in for glorifying terrorism...among Muslim brothers...there are hypocrites, munafiqs (hypocrites). There are spies, all sorts of people. There's no need to talk about it, to say like this."

He said: "Anyone who attacks Islam I believe that Allah will take care of him, that is, Allah will defend Islam. This is what I believe as a Muslim."

One man who was jailed for four years in May 2004 for "assisting extremist Muslims in Europe", David Courtailler, had converted to Islam in 1997 at the Alquds mosque in Brighton. Courtailler had subsequently gone to Aghanistan and on his return became involved with, among others, Jamal Zougam, currently indicted for 191 murders from the Madrid train bombing of March 11, 2004.

In Courtailler's trial in Paris it was stated that Omar Deghayes had given him 1,000 pounds ($1,800) to go to a jihadist camp in Afghanistan. Omar Deghayes was arrested in Pakistan in 2002 after leaving Afghanistan following the fall of the Taliban.

The revelation that Omar Deghayes had financed jihadist activity "surprised" his supporters, states the Sunday Times. It should also come as a matter of shame for the Brighton Argus, which has compromised its journalistic integrity in its campaign to free an "innocent" man.

Court records back up the Times' claim that Abubaker Deghayes had used sustained intimidation against Sajid to gain control of the Alquds Mosque.

In 1996, Deghayes had wanted to start a primary school at the mosque, where Muslim children could be educated away from "western influences", and "misleading ideologies". The mosque rehected the plan.

In May 1997, Brighton County Court found Deghayes had assaulted Sajid four times in December 1996 and January 1997. Sajid had also been spat upon and threatened with a knife by one of Deghayes' supporters. Injunctions were issued banning Deghayes and his supporters from approaching Sajid, but he was forced out of the mosque, leaving Deghayes in charge. The trustees of Sussex Muslim Society Charity, which operates the mosque, were also thrown out.

In 1996, Deghayes told the Charity Commission that he was in charge, and the Commission now acknowledges severe financial impropriety has been going on, with no accounts submitted for the past four years,

The Sunday Times has done a good piece of investigative journalism, but the Brighton Argus has been painting a very different picture of Abdulkader and Omar Deghayes.

On its campaign page, it depicts Abubaker Deghayes holding up an image of his brother (pictured above). The paper's campaign was launched last year. The report states that a brick had been thrown through a window at Abubaker's home. His wife and four children had been asleep at the time.

Deghayes told the Argus: "This makes me more determined to fight this campaign. Nothing will put us off justice for my brother. Why would somebody want to attack the family of a man being held in Guantanamo Bay prison?"

The official "save Omar" website, which is independent of the Argus, states that: "Omar is one of eight British residents still imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay. The British government have thus far used the excuse that he holds only refugee status to deny all responsibility for him.

Omar and his family left Libya for the UK in 1986, six years after his father, a democrat and trade unionist, was assassinated by Colonel Gaddafi's regime. They settled just outside Brighton, Omar with refugee status in the UK, and the remainder of his family as British citizens."

The website shows how supporters have staged three protests this month at Starbucks coffee shops, because there is a Starbucks at Guantanamo, and pictures are shown of an overweight man in an orange boiler suit (Abubaker?) posing on the Brighton seafront with a black bag over his head.

But let us look a little closer at "Omar's diary", documenting how awfully those nasty American infidel are treating him. Reproduced in the Argus in September last year, an interesting insight into Omar's mindset can be found. He alleges mistreatment, including Koran desecration, and says of the "General": "I am very frustrated with these cunning officers and worthless men of no word. In Arabia we look down on such people."

The Argus has bought into his story entirely, stating: "According to his supporters, Mr Deghayes was picked up by bounty hunters and sold to the troops as someone with terrorist links.

He has not been charged with any offence and the only evidence produced against him is a video which the Americans allege links him with terrorism but which facial recognition experts have dismissed as a case of mistaken identity."

The Argus seems hellbent on portraying Omar and Abubaker Deghayes as "victims", even though it was under Abubaker Deghayes' leadership at Alquds mosque that David Courtailler became radicalized. Abubaker tells the Sunday Times: "The name does not really mean anything to me."

Omar Deghayes gave money to the new convert, Davis Courtailler, to go on jihad to Afghanistan. And who did Courtailler, inspired by the mosque to convert to Islam, go on to meet? Marc Sageman, a counterterrorism expert stated in 2004: "...the Benyaich brothers also seemed to have lived, at least for a week or two, at the end of 1998 with David Courtailler, who is also an al Qaeda member. And David Courtailler just came to Madrid after he had been training in Afghanistan.

And, of course, David Courtailler was the old roommate of Moussaoui, Zacarias Moussaoui, in London in 1997. "

Posted by Giraldus Cambrensis at June 18, 2006 9:13 AM

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Posted by: alexieboy at June 19, 2006 11:46 AM

Posted by: The Fox at June 19, 2006 3:58 PM

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