ALI BEHESHTI

Very interesting news on the BBC about our old friend Ali Beheshti's turn around. As I have said before he was always one of the friendliest people outside Finsbury park and I was surprised when he was arrested for fire bombing.

I filmed him playing with fire outside the US embassy, he is the guy holding the burning picture of George Bush

THE ANSWER IS -FUCK KNOWS

The Express are trying to link the Boston bombing with Hamza

Did Abu Hamza inspire Boston bombers?

THE Boston bombers’ murderous attack on the US city’s marathon may have been inspired by the rantings of extremist preacher Abu Hamza. US intelligence officials suspect Hamza’s widely publicised extradition from Britain to the US last year could have fuelled Tamerlan and Dzhkhor Tsarnaev’s warped jihad campaign.

Last night a senior US intelligence source said: “The most high-profile cleric who has come to the US was Hamza.

“He made a lot of headlines and this is something they would not have missed. These types of people always have someone to inspire them and Hamza fits the bill.

“He may be in prison but if you listen to the internet chatter there are still a lot of people talking about Abu Hamza. He is considered very highly.

“These two got a lot of inspiration from the internet and from reading material on those who preach hate. We are looking at all paths.”

Hamza, who is being held in a high security jail in New York, had no contact with the brothers.

 However, videos of Hamza are readily available on the internet. Those containing his more radical sermons calling for a jihad against the west are distributed among a select group by file sharing.

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NO ASWAT

European judges have blocked the extradition of terror suspect Haroon Aswat, ruling that sending him to the US would breach his human rights. The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) decided that Broadmoor patient Aswat's probable incarceration in a high security prison could "exacerbate his condition of paranoid schizophrenia".
The terror suspect and suspected ally of Abu Hamza is wanted by US prosecutors for allegedly plotting with Hamza to set up a terror training camp in Bly, Oregon.

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Abu Hamza's US trial to start next year

THE terror trial of radical British preacher Abu Hamza al-Masri will start on March 31 next year, the US judge presiding over his case since he was extradited last year says.
Judge Katherine Forrest had initially scheduled the trial for mid-2013, but said the long delay appeared necessary because of the vast amount of discovery material lawyers have to pour over, including many of the sermons Abu Hamza made at mosques in Britain.

and here is an interesting article about the judge, Katherine Forrest

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MESSAGE TO YOU

via Mr Hamza's wife. This wasn't directly to me but I am assuming it is genuine

An Update on my husband Sheikh Abu Hamza 6/01/13
Since my husband sheikh Abu Hamza was extradited from the UK to America on the 5th of October 2012. Since then, my husband has not been allowed to see anyone face to face not even his solicitors.
The times the American government allowed my husband to see his solicitors on a number of occasion. Even then, the visit has been behind a glass window. Not only that, the glass window had a curtain over the glass to prevent my husband from looking at his solicitors face to face...
All this time, he has remained in solitary confinement for 23 hours a day in a small room with no window and no sunlight. For one hour, he is allowed to stretch his leg just next to his sell where there is not even enough room to even do that.
It has been three months now since he’s extradition but, he was only allowed to call me once. On a contrary, alhmdulillah I have revived few letters from him. Me and my family also write to him on a regular bases.
Since he’s been there, his hair has not being combed due to a comb not being available for him. He doesn’t even know the direction of the kibla so he prays to a direction by guessing where the kibla is.
The American government knows my husband is disabled!. But when the guards bring food for him, they bring food which is wrapped with plastic. When my husband tries to open it with his teeth, half of the food is spilled all over the floor. Walahi this is an oppression being done to my husband knowing full well that he has no hand. This people who have detained my husband unlawfully do nothing but aggravate the situation and make things difficult for him intentionally. They have stripped his dignity and violated his honour. His faith and religious practices attacked, but Alhmduliullah, Allah is the watcher and the ultimate protector of those who are week and Allah (SWT) does not let the deeds of anyone to be lost. Allah will hold EVERYONE (ALL human beings, without an exception) accountable for their actions on the day of judgement where there is no doubt!
Despite all these, Alhamdulillah my husband sheikh Abu Hamza is happy and is in a good spirit. He knows that this is the path he has chosen and his words are always, “Allah is with me, Allah is with me”
He has said to let all the brothers and sisters who has written letters to him know that, they are always in his special du'aas. He is happy to know that the umma has not forsaken him. He said not to worry, in sha Allah.
It would be nice for the brothers and sisters to write letters to him as much as you can so that he knows his brothers and sisters have not forgotten about him and that he knows he is always in your du'aas.
I can’t stress enough the importance of everyone making du’aa for him, as this is the most powerful weapon we have. He needs our support right now and has a right to our support. So please brothers and sisters, make du’aa and remember the only crime he committed is that he says he believes in Allah. The prison is not the place for him. His place is with His family, especially his children.
The Prophet (peace be upon him) said:
“One who helps a fellow Muslim in removing his (or her) difficulty in this world, Allah will remove the former’s distress on the Day of Judgement. He who helps to remove the hardship of another, will have his difficulties removed by Allah in this world and the hereafter. One who covers the shortcomings of another Muslim will have his faults covered up in this world and the next by Allah. Allah continues to help a servant, so long as he goes on helping his own brother (or sister). Muslim
We will all be called to account and asked what we did for our brothers and sisters that are suffering around us, the least we can do is make du’aa for them.
Barakallahufikum for all those brothers and sisters who have supported my husband for all these years. Your help, love and concern for him has not gone unnoticed. Your reward is with Allah (SWT). I ask Allah, the almighty to give you, the good of this world and the good of the hereafter.. Ameen
Umm Hamza

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STRONG STUFF

From the Daily Star-

A FORMER MI5 agent who spied on hate preacher Abu Qatada has vowed to bring him to justice at any cost.

Reda Hassaine, 50, tracked Qatada for the security ­services in the 1990s and also helped them snare Abu ­Hamza.

But he claims he was ditched by spooks after his cover was blown when he was beaten up by the extremist’s henchmen in 1999.

The French-Algerian spy last night lifted the lid on his ­mission to “finish” Qatada, 52, which will see him ­publish a dossier of evidence against the extremist in a tell-all book.

Qatada was freed last month after spending six years in custody for being a danger to the public.

He won a long- running battle against deportation to his homeland of Jordan and is now living with his wife and children in West London.

The cleric had been convicted in his absence in Jordan of terrorist offences in 1999.

Mr Hassaine told us: “It is between Reda Hassaine and Abu Qatada.

“This guy has to pay and, thank God, I helped get Abu Hamza sent to jail, probably for the rest of his life.

“But Abu Qatada, he is still here on the streets. The final battle is now the book.

“The British Government will be obliged to start a public ­inquiry regarding all the lost years for my colleagues and ­myself.” He added: “The book will be ­published first in America in ­August around the time of Abu Hamza’s trial.

“Abu Hamza, for me, is finished. But for Abu Qatada it is a ­different story.

“If he was sent (to Jordan) two weeks ago, it would have been finished.

“But this decision keeps me and many other people ­angry about it and ­trying to find what we can do to sort out this big problem of Abu Qatada staying in the UK.

“In other countries it would be a political decision but not in the UK. The Queen wants him to be deported, the Government wants him to be ­deported.”

Mr Hassaine also claimed there had been contact between the Government and ­active ­terrorists.

He called on ministers to come clean over the so-called “covenant of security” – a deal allegedly forged between security services and Islamic extremists in the 1990s in return for Britain being struck off a list of potential ­terror targets...

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DEPORT ONE GET ONE FREE

Abu Qatada is to be freed after winning his latest appeal against extradition, in a major blow to Home Secretary Theresa May. The Special Immigration Appeals Commission (Siac) decided the radical cleric would not get a fair trial in Jordan because evidence obtained via torture could be used against him. This is despite the Home Secretary securing assurances from the country that this would not happen. Qatada will be released on bail after Home Office lawyers failed to persuade Siac judges he should remain behind bars. They insisted that the Palestinian-born Jordanian cleric, real name Omar Mahmoud Mohammed Othman, poses "an enormous risk to national security". But Edward Fitzgerald QC, for Qatada, declared: "Enough is enough. It has gone on for many years now. There is no prospect of deportation taking place within a reasonable time, in fact there is no prospect at present of deportation at all."

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ITS NOT EASY

Being the son of a famous father obviously-


The son of Islamic cleric Abu Hamza al-Masri has been jailed for 11 years over an armed raid on a Norfolk jewellers. Imran Mostafa, 20, from Slough, was convicted with three London men at Norwich Crown Court in September... ...The court was told Mostafa had been sucked into offending because he had been isolated from mainstream society as parents warned their children to stay away from him. His barrister Roderick Price said: "In his early childhood he had a very good relationship with his father who, at that time, was not in prison. "But attempts to socialise outside his home often failed because of who his father was. Friendships proved difficult because children would be told by their parents not to play with him."...

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BARGAIN IDEA

...His lawyer, Jeremy Schneider, yesterday said there is now a possibility of a 'plea bargain', although Hamza currently denies all charges.
He told The Sun: 'If they offer something agreeable to the defendant and myself, we would accept it.'..

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KIDNAPPED IN YEMEN

Just finished it, I thought it was going to be good. It was excellent. This obviously contains spoliers, so if you are reading for fun, just buy the book. it is really worth it.

"Corporate American" with a taste for travel off the beaten track gets kidnapped, doesn't take it lying down and in the cross fire of being held as a human shield for not a short time either, she finds a rugged cool headed survivalist in herself and lives to tell the tale. Not only lives, but reappraises her life and follows the story of her kidnap wherever it may lead.

Obviously I was reading it, and if I was a journalist would have read it ages ago for the cross over with this blog. Her meeting with Hamza in Finsbury park is very interesting, she obviously arrived before they closed down the mosque, just before my interest in this story began. I will be very interested to hear her testimony in a New York court, as I will be to hear how much invovlement Hamza had over satellite phone in her kidnap.

The really interesting stuff for me was her encounter with Shahid Butt, and Hamza's sons Mustafa  and Mohssain Ghalian. It seems like she spent about the same amount of time as I did with them but in very different circumstances, as she spoke to them in a Yemeni jail. She seems in no doubt that they were on a mission to bomb British interests in Yemen, although she says that Hamza told her that he didn't know his sons had gone and told her he was angry with them.

She definitely saw a different Shahid Butt than I did, not surprisingly I suppose, but she reads a lot more into Mohssin's reticence than I did. I thought he was just a bit shy and didn't even realise he was part of the group I was being introduced to. I couldn't make any comment about either of them really, or about the merits of British relationships with Yemen whether they are a good thing, a bad thing or if Muslims should be doing something about it. I would imagine if you believed they were a bad thing and you believed in your religion as a Muslim it would feel like it was incumbent about you to do something about it, and according to the CIA training manuals the Encyclopedia of Afghan Jihad is based on, bombing strategic buildings and boats would do the trick, and if you were caught in the process your mates would probably kidnap some Westerners. I know Hamza has preached from the Koran about such things.

Mary Quinn is a great writer about this stuff. I sort of wish she would become a War on Terr-r journalist as she is way better than most of them. She says what she thinks about things no problem but she also tries to understand situations from all perspectives which is the best part of reading her story.


Mary Quin: Woman set to testify against 'terror' preacher Abu Hamza ..

MUSTAFA IN THE USA

Very interesting change of emphasis as Mr H comes to trial in the US

AN Egyptian-born preacher charged in multiple terror plots will be outfitted next week with new prosthetic arms to replace the hooks he used before, his lawyer says.

Mustafa Kamel Mustafa needs all the help he can get while at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in Manhattan awaiting trial, attorney Jeremy Schneider said after a hearing...

...He has pleaded not guilty to conspiring with some Seattle men to set up a terrorist training camp in Oregon and to helping abduct two American tourists and 14 other people in Yemen in 1998...

... Schneider told US District Judge Katherine B. Forrest that Mustafa, 54, "has an extraordinary knowledge and interest in helping with his defence" despite the challenges of being housed in solitary confinement in a prison wing where defendants facing terrorism charges are typically held.
"This defendant is going to get the appropriate resources" necessary for a fair trial, the judge said as she assigned a legal team of at least five people to assist him.
"This is an almost never-ending job," Schneider said as his client looked toward the judge.
"This case occurred approximately 14 years ago covering three continents."
Schneider said researching the case will likely cause the defence team to reach out to Yemen, England and Pakistan to collect evidence.
Prosecutors said 47 boxes of materials were being shipped from England, including computer disks and hard drives.
Outside court, Schneider said Mustafa was "ready, willing and able" to assist in his defence but it was difficult for attorneys to confer with him because the prison forces them to interact with a barrier between them...


...“You’re talking about thousands of documents, you’re talking about [foreign] bureaucracies that I don’t think are going to be friendly to us,” he told U.S. District Judge Katherine Forrest in Manhattan federal court on Friday afternoon.
Prosecutors said large volumes of evidence exist in the case, including 47 boxes of material and 700 CDs. They said they are seeking to have some evidence shipped from the U.K...
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9/11 times 1000

You can't fault the enthusiasm but it's probably not going to help his case-

SOMALI militants linked to al-Qaeda have threatened to inflict on the UK a terrorist attack worse than the London bombings of 7 July 2005 for extraditing the Islamist cleric Abu Hamza to the United States.

Al-Shabaab made the threats in a series of messages on Twitter, The Times reports.
One tweet threatened the biggest Islamist terrorist attack yet on Britain: "The nightmare that surreptitiously looms on British shores is bound to eclipse the horrors of 7/7 and 21/7 combined."
Another read: "Britain will pay the heftiest price for its brazen role in the war against Islam and endless brutality against innocent Muslims."
Al-Shabaab also said it would "go to every possible length to attain the freedom of imprisoned Muslim scholars".

more detail here
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HAS HE BEEN EXTRADITED?

Alun Jones QC says in the Independent

I represented Abu Hamza in his extradition proceedings. Why is he being tried in America? 

something Boris and Ken seem agreed on in the case of Babar Ahmed

I am interested to hear evidence, and just got hold of Mary Quinns Kidnapped in Yemen, something I should probably have read a long time ago.

 American woman set to testify against 'terror' preacher Abu Hamza after she was kidnapped by his militants in Yemen

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AMERICA

An American woman who was kidnapped in Yemen is expected to stand up in court against the Islamic hate preacher who orchestrated her terrifying ordeal.
Mary Quin was abducted along with 15 other tourists in 1998 by militants who were instructed by hate preacher Abu Hamza al-Masri. 

Abu Hamza's wife 'should be kicked out of her £1m council house' now hate preacher has been extradited to the US, says MP

Radical Muslim cleric Abu Hamza, who was extradited from Britain last week, has pleaded not guilty to terror charges in the US.

Terror suspect Abu Qatada is "scraping the barrel" in an appeal against deportation which "bears all the hallmarks of a last-ditch argument"

From Fox News-

..."He's presumed innocent," his court-appointed lawyer, Jeremy Schneider, said outside court afterward. When someone asked Schneider whether he thought his client was a terrorist, he snapped: "That's a silly question."... 

 Also from The Village Voice-

Abu Hamza al-Masri, High-profile Terror Suspect Extradited to New York to Stand Trial -- And No One Seems To Care

... What's does an alleged terrorist have to do to get some attention in this city?...

... The quiet reception of al-Masri stands in stark contrast to the outcry caused by plans announced in 2009 to try 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed in New York federal court.

"It really seems to show that this whole panic and screaming about not having terrorists tried in New York or anywhere else in this country is really red herring," Brigitte Nacos, a political science professor who specializes in terrorism and mass media at Columbia University, tells the Voice. "This guy is certainly not less dangerous than anyone else New York had to deal with."...

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PAGE TURNER

Well the story and this blog has finally turned a page, and we also get a bit of the framework of what Mr Hamza will be charged with.

Abu Hamza, 54, is charged in an 11-count indictment with supporting the Taliban with money and troops and aiding a 1998 kidnapping in Yemen that left four hostages dead. He was one of five suspects extradited from the U.K., three of whom appeared yesterday in federal court in New York and the two others in Connecticut. 

“These are men who were at the nerve centers of al-Qaeda’sacts of terror, and they caused blood to be shed, lives to belost, and families to be shattered,” U.S. Attorney PreetBharara in Manhattan said in a statement...

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SICKNOTE

Pretty much as expected

Lawyers for Abu Hamza, who is wanted by the United States on terrorism charges, say his health is “deteriorating”.
They say medical tests could establish that the radical cleric is unfit to plead and should not be extradited to the US to face trial...

... A QC for the Home Secretary is arguing that the challenges are abuses of process, as all the points could have been raised months or even years earlier and have no merit...

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HOOK AND CROOK

Abu Hamza's poor public image is not helped by his piratical hook, but for all its appearances, it is surprisingly practical ...

Five sons of hate preacher Abu Hamza, who is fighting extradition to the US from Britain, have been convicted of serious offences ranging from bomb making to fraud and assaulting police, the Daily Mail reported on Sunday...

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GUESS WOT

I am beginning to find this a bit of a joke and I am the only person taking this story seriously.

Abu Hamza: High Court judge halts extradition to the US.

If I was really boring I would count up how many "Abu Hamza deported" and "Abu Hamza: Extradition halted" blogs I had posted. Anyway turns out Mr Hamza can stay and in other news Its the end of the Monarchy. Otherwise nothing happened today.

Update: The BBC are taking it a bit more seriously.

also- the best thing written yet! Does Abu Hamza's non-deportation make you mad? Or maybe his detention without trial is making you angry? Blame unassimilated multiculturalism!

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SAY IT LIKE YOU MEAN IT

The BBC has apologised for revealing the Queen raised concerns with the government about why radical cleric Abu Hamza al-Masri had not been arrested. The apology comes after security correspondent Frank Gardner told BBC Radio 4 of a private conversation he had with the Queen some years ago.The BBC said it and Gardner were sorry for the "breach of confidence", which both "deeply regret"...

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Abu Hamza could be out of Britain in days after losing extradition appeal

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A quick look at how the Americans are covering this From CNN-

...He once described Britain as a "toilet" -- now, radical Muslim cleric Abu Hamza al-Masri is to be flushed out of the UK legal system and into a potential life sentence in America...

toilet? flush? geddit? Pretty snappy

 and ABC:

Abu Hamza Road Show

The Finsbury Park mosque imam is coming to America

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Hamza and The Queen

Seems I am not the only person in the UK to take an interest in Mr H. I am a bit bored of how many times I have posted here that he is going to be extradited, but it seems he actually is this time along with a few others. Lets see.

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