A JUDGE was offered £50,000 to “throw” the trial of an extremist Muslim cleric found guilty yesterday of encouraging his followers to kill Jews, Hindus and Westerners.
A letter making the offer to Judge Peter Beaumont, QC, the Common Serjeant of London, was sent to the Old Bailey on the eve of Abdullah el-Faisal’s prosecution on charges of soliciting murder and inciting racial hatred.
After the cleric was convicted on six of the counts yesterday, the judge lifted an order banning the reporting of the letter, which was sent from Glasgow. Police said that an investigation ordered by the judge, involving forces in London and Glasgow, was ongoing.
El-Faisal, an imam who toured Britain for four years urging audiences to follow the teachings of Osama bin Laden and kill all “unbelievers”, was behind bars last night after being convicted of three charges of soliciting murder. He was found guilty on a further three counts of attempting to stir up racial hatred through abusive and threatening words.
In his lectures, which included titles such as No Peace with the Jews and Them versus Us, the cleric exhorted audiences to take up acts of terrorism, including the use of chemical and nuclear weapons. He also tried to recruit British schoolboys to terrorist training camps.
El-Faisal, 39, showed no emotion as the jury returned guilty verdicts after ten hours deliberation on three of the five charges of soliciting murder, a Victorian law that carries a maximum sentence of life imprisonment. The cleric is the first person in almost 100 years to be convicted of the charge, under the Offences Against the Person Act of 1861, without the identification of a specific victim.
It was also the first time potential jurors were banned from sitting on the jury because of their religion. The judge agreed to a defence plea not to allow Jewish and Hindu jurors, but in the end none came forward.
El-Faisal’s supporters, who were packed into the public gallery in Court Six, sat in shock as he was remanded in custody pending sentencing next Friday. As the cleric, who was dressed in a long brown robe, fly-collared shirt and skullcap, gave a wave, several of the group stood up and cheered.
Outside the court, more than 30 demonstrators had gathered to protest at the case, which they claimed was an act of political persecution and a denial of free speech.
Police described el-Faisal’s conduct yesterday as “deeply offensive and dangerous” and said that the Muslim convert may have been responsible for influencing impressionable young Muslims to take part in terrorism.
Deputy Assistant Commissioner Peter Clarke, head of Scotland Yard’s Anti-Terrorist Squad, said: “We simply do not know how many young, impressionable people may have gone abroad and never returned. This case was nothing to do with freedom of speech but everything to do with racial hatred and religious bigotry — and encouraging people to commit acts of terrorism. When you look at the words that he was saying, it goes beyond being misguided or over-enthusiastic. It is naked religious and racial hatred.”
The Home Office is reviewing el-Faisal’s immigration status and the judge could recommend deportation after he has completed his sentence.
During the four-week trial the jury sat through more than 12 hours of audio and video cassette footage found by police in specialist Islamic bookshops and at the two-bedroom, rented property el-Faisal, a Jamaican national, shared with his British wife, Zubeida, and their three children.
In one tape, labelled Jihad Dat, the cleric is heard exhorting an audience to learn how to master Kalashnikov rifles and enjoy the rewards of killing a kuffar, or unbeliever.
“This is how wonderful it is to kill a kuffar,” he tells an audience of young Muslims. “You crawl on his back and while you are pushing him into the hellfire you are going into paradise.”
In a question and answer session on another tape, Jihad, el-Faisal instructs his audience to use chemical weapons to exterminate unbelievers “as you would a cockroach”. He tells his audiences later: “You have to learn to fly planes, drive tanks and you have to learn how to load your guns and to use missiles.”
The court was told that how the self-styled sheikh had also extolled the use of Kalashnikovs by all males over the age of 15. In another tape played to the jury, Declaration of War, he was heard quoting the words of Osama bin Laden.
El-Faisal, a seemingly gentle and charismatic orator, offered a markedly different interpretation of bin Laden’s teachings, claiming that he was interpreting and updating the words of the Koran. David Perry, for the prosecution, denied his claim that the Koran was on trial and accused the preacher of hiding behind a “cloak of religion” to mask his hatred. “This is not some crank in Speaker’s Corner,” Mr Perry told the jury, adding that el-Faisal had addressed young, impressionable Muslims “from a position of authority”.
Mr Perry said that el-Faisal was encouraging Britons to go to terrorist training camps in Afghanistan before and after September 11.
However, investigations into Britons involved with al-Qaeda by Scotland Yard’s Anti-Terrorism Branch failed to uncover any direct links to the terrorist organisation. Detectives said last night that the attempted bribery of Judge Beaumont was not known to emanate from a colleague of el-Faisal. However, it was being viewed as a deliberate attempt to try to discredit the judge.
Historic charge
The conviction of Abdullah el-Faisal for soliciting murder without a specific victim was the first such prosecution in almost a century. The charge, under the Offences Against the Person Act 1861, was last successfully brought against an Italian revolutionary in 1905, again at the Old Bailey, who had written exhorting the murder of sovereigns, particularly Italian royalty.
