#terror trial

Fascinating article about a terror trial where the defendant isn’t a Muslim but was intending to target Muslims. From the article:

A trial began in federal court on Monday of a radical religious cleric who allegedly plotted to kill Americans of another faith to prove his “commitment to our God.” Why haven’t you heard about this, you might be asking? Could it be as Donald Trump claimed Monday that the “dishonest media” is not covering all “radical Islamic” terrorist plots?

No, the actual reason is that the man on trial in a Tennessee federal district court is not Muslim. Rather he’s self-professed Christian minister Robert Doggart. If he were Muslim, we would of course have heard of his sinister plot. But as we have seen time and time again, terrorist plots by non-Muslims are met with a collective yawn by most in our media. ...

Palestinian Authority put on trial for terror charges in U.S.

The Palestinian Authority goes on trial on terrorism-related charges for the first time in the US on Tuesday. It faces claims of liability for terrorism, murder, and wrongful death damages that reach all the way up to the late PA head Yasser Arafat. (more…)

New Post has been published on http://www.therakyatpost.com/world/2014/10/13/britain-holds-first-terror-trial-secrecy-rules/

Britain holds first 'terror trial' under secrecy rules

LONDON, Oct 13, 2014:

A British court today began hearing the country’s first major trial on terrorism charges under new secrecy rules that means it will take place almost entirely out of the public eye.

The defendant is Erol Incedal, 26, who was formerly referred to in court documents only as AB, and he is accused of “intending to commit or preparing acts of terrorism” and possessing a document about bomb-making.

The “core” evidence is to be heard in secret and only part of the prosecution’s opening statement as well as the verdict and sentence will be made public under the new rules.

Britain’s Court of Appeal earlier this year ruled that limited elements of the proceedings must be made public following an appeal by media organisations against what would have been the country’s first ever completely secret criminal trial.

Prosecutors had argued that disclosures from the proceedings could jeopardise national security.

The Court of Appeal did accept that there was a “significant risk” to the administration of justice in an open trial, as prosecutors might be deterred from proceeding with the case due to the sensitive nature of the evidence.

But it defended the principle of open justice and said basic information about the trial should be made available.

New Post has been published on http://www.therakyatpost.com/world/2014/05/09/british-preacher-tells-us-trial-loves-bin-laden/

British preacher tells US trial he 'loves' bin Laden

NEW YORK, May 9:

British hate preacher Abu Hamza told his US terror trial Thursday that he loved Osama bin Laden but refused when invited to join Al-Qaeda at its inception.

Mustafa Kamel Mustafa, 56, better known in Britain as Abu Hamza al-Masri has pleaded not guilty in New York to 11 kidnapping and terror counts that pre-date 9/11.

He is charged over the 1998 kidnapping in Yemen of 16 Westerners, conspiracy to set up a US training camp, providing material support to Al-Qaeda, assisting the Taliban and sending terror recruits to Afghanistan.

He denies all the charges, but on the stand for a second day said he “loved” bin Laden, the founder of Al-Qaeda shot dead by US troops in Pakistan in 2011.

“He’s a very famous man. Everyone loves him, including myself,” he told the Manhattan courtroom not far from where Al-Qaeda reduced the Twin Towers to rubble.

He never met the Al-Qaeda founder and refused to join the terror group when invited, he said.

But he called him “Sheikh bin Laden” and in a video clip justified the 2000 Al-Qaeda attack on the USS Cole that killed 17 personnel as a military operation.

For the first time, Abu Hamza announced that his blindness in one eye and amputated hands occurred not in Afghanistan as always thought, but in Pakistan.

He said the accident happened during an explosives experiment with the Pakistani army in August 1993.

The device was prepared by an Egyptian called Abu Khabab, he said, the same name as an expert alleged to have taught Western Al-Qaeda recruits in Afghanistan in 2000-01.

He said the army offered not to round up Arab former mujahideen in exchange for his silence.

“The army said look we’re not going to make any more arrests, just don’t embarrass us about what happened,” the preacher told the jury.

Asked if he fired a weapon in Afghanistan, he confessed: “I wish I had,” saying that instead he shot “a couple of bullets at the communist regime.”

Pakistan army link

After the 1980s war against the Soviets in Afghanistan he said he helped Arab veterans find jobs in Pakistan.

The army wanted those with tactics and explosives experience to help in other areas, Abu Hamza testified.

In 1993 he said he was designing a steel plate with a Pakistani engineer as part of a wider, unidentified project for which “others were designing explosives.”

The work took place in army-issue accommodation in the city of Lahore, where explosives were tested on empty land between two villas on the street, he said.

“I was surprised why the neighbours were not complaining or calling the police. They were all army families,” he said.

The Arab was lax with “health and safety,” he said, and prepared a small container of explosives to which “Commander Ilyas” added a detonator.

Abu Hamza said he picked up the device, which was getting hot, but couldn’t throw it in the bathroom as previously advised because someone was at the sink.

He said it exploded and he fell into a coma, spending a month in a military hospital in Lahore.

Previous reports said that he lost his arms in Afghanistan, but Abu Hamza said “all sorts of stories” had circulated about the reason for his injuries.

Despite often rambling and at times confused testimony, he elicited a few laughs from the court.

He testified to changing his name legally on his British passport in order to travel to Bosnia in the mid-1990s to provide cars and money to Muslim fighters.

Flying to Sarajevo would have been a “death sentence” for an Arab, he said, so he changed his name saying it was “very, very simple.”

“You pay 25 pounds (US$42 today) and write out saying I want to be John Travolta and you become John Travolta,” he said to titters in the courtroom.

Of his time in Bosnia, he twice teared up with emotion.

Asked about the 1995 massacre of Bosnian Muslims at Srebrenica, Judge Katherine Forrest called a short break as he started snuffling and bowing his head.

The conflict convinced him of the need to train even children in self-defence so that Muslims could live in dignity and not be trampled on by superpowers.

New Post has been published on http://www.therakyatpost.com/world/2014/05/08/british-hate-preacher-managed-london-strip-club/

British hate preacher managed London strip club

NEW YORK, May 8:

British hate preacher Abu Hamza told his US terror trial Wednesday how he once jointly managed a London strip club in his quest to live a Western, movie-style life.

Mustafa Kamel Mustafa, 56, better known in Britain as Abu Hamza al-Masri, has pleaded not guilty to 11 kidnapping and terror counts that pre-date the 9/11 attacks.

Blind in one eye and with both hands blown off in an explosion in Afghanistan, he faces life in prison in a maximum security US prison if convicted by jury at the New York court.

Taking the stand for the first time in his trial, wearing tracksuit bottoms, a blue T-shirt and orange socks, the Egyptian-born former civil engineer spoke softly.

At one stage he elicited laughter from jury members by doling out marital advice, saying it would be “silly” for a man to tell his wife he didn’t love her.

“This is a silly kind of truth,” he said, explaining the man could easily change his mind multiple times.

“Maybe he loves her later” or “maybe she is the best person for him,” he said in an almost scholarly voice.

He also said his engineering studies included the World Trade Center, destroyed in the 9/11 attacks he has praised, and the effect of “explosions” and demolition – which he said became “useful” later in life.

He is charged over the 1998 kidnapping in Yemen of 16 Westerners, conspiracy to set up a jihad training camp in Oregon in 1999, of providing material support to Al-Qaeda, of assisting the Taliban and of sending recruits for terror training in Afghanistan.

The three-times married father of nine said he moved to England in 1979 aged 21 because he “looked forward to a Western life, American-style.”

He testified that he wanted to “pursue my dreams as we see in the films” after growing up in Egypt’s Mediterranean city of Alexandria, which he described as “very close to Italy” and used to foreigners.

In London, he took odd jobs, working as a hotel receptionist, a bouncer in the Soho party district and said he was “co-manager of a strip club.”

He wanted to “make money and enjoy myself” and only later saw his jobs as on the “wrong side of morality.”

Once he saved up enough money, he said he got a degree in civil engineering.

As an engineer he worked as a contractor at Britain’s prestigious military academy Sandhurst, which he quickly pointed out was where Prince Harry had trained.

He blamed his initial interest in Islam in 1982 on his English wife, who was “pushing too hard” to convert as a means for the couple to spend more time together.

They bought an English edition of the Koran and stopped smoking. During the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan, he took time off from the clubs and found that he “enjoyed” the break, he said.

Despite saying lies were justified in Islam in certain cases, he denied he would lie on the stand.

“I’m no stranger to prison. If my freedom comes at the expense of my dignity, I don’t want it,” he said.