Cpt. Rishwat
T20I Captain
- Joined
- May 8, 2010
- Runs
- 43,385
Abu Hamza, the radical Islamic preacher notorious for his hate-filled sermons, was in reality working secretly with British intelligence "to keep the streets of London safe" by "cooling hotheads", his lawyer claimed in a US court.
Holding up what he said were reports from Scotland Yard, Joshua Dratel described the cleric as an "intermediary" who cooperated with MI5 and the police to try to end foreign hostage-takings and defuse tensions with the Muslim community in Britain.
The extraordinary admission will fuel conspiracy theories that he was allowed to preach hatred without arrest for so long in the UK because he was working with the security authorities
His portrayal of the fiery Egyptian-born imam presented a very different picture from the one laid out by earlier by prosecutors who have accused him of operating a global terror network from the Finsbury Park mosque in north London.
Mr Dratel, the lead defence attorney, made the startling claim as Hamza prepared to take the witness box in his own defence in his New York trial where he has pleaded not guilty to 11 charges of terrorism.
The lawyer was arguing against a prosecution request for the judge to block the cleric from talking about any dealings with British authorities that did not relate directly to the allegations against him in court.
Hamza was extradited to the US in 2012 after serving a six-year jail term in Britain for inciting racial hatred and soliciting murder.
During his trial in the UK in 2006, Hamza claimed he was in regular discussions with MI5 and Special Branch between 1997 and 2000.
He claimed then that he was told he could continue to preach “as long as we don’t see blood on the street”.
The alleged discussions occurred at a time of heightened concern in the UK over the amount of Islamist extremists sheltering here, which led to the nickname “Londonistan”.
Hamza told the Old Bailey then that it was not until 2000 that he was then warned he was “walking a tightrope”.
In New York, he now faces much more serious charges of funnelling cash and recruits to al-Qaeda in Afghanistan, involvement in a hostage-taking in Yemen in which three Britons were killed and trying to set up a jihad training camp in Oregon.
The cleric, who is on trial just a few streets from the scene of the Sept 2001 terrorist strikes on the World Trade Centre, has previously praised those 9/11 attacks as a "towering day in history" and lauded Osama bin Laden, the al-Qaeda founder.
But Mr Dratel contended that his client was in fact just making those outrageous statements to appeal to parts of the Muslim community.
"He's going to testify that he took a certain position publicly for a certain reason, but at the same time his intention was to de-escalate, to avoid wider war and to keep the streets of London safe," Mr Dratel told Judge Katherine Forrest in deliberations before the jury was ushered into the federal courtroom.
He said that Hamza expressed his true "intent" in discussions with Scotland Yard and MI5. "It goes to the theme of our defence that he was an intermediary, that MI5 asked him on multiple times to act in hostage situations, cool down the community and maintain a sense of order," he argued.
Mr Dratel said he was working from 50 pages of reports of Scotland Yard – "their notes of what was said" – in dealings with Hamza between May 1997 and August 2000, the period covered by US charges against him.
"The documents were provided by the UK," he said. "They touch on virtually every conflict that we are talking about in this case – Algeria, Bosnia, Yemen, Afghanistan."
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/wor...d-for-MI5-to-keep-streets-of-London-safe.html
Working with the MI5. I wonder if he could be deemed an asset, assuming it was true?
