THE Prince of Wales was one of the most persuasive voices behind the building of the now-notorious Finsbury Park Mosque.

Flanked by Muslim leaders, the Prince would tour this dilapidated corner of North London in the early 1980s with wealthy businessmen and local councillors in tow, pointing out how a clutch of derelict houses on St Thomas’s Road was an ideal location.

He raised the idea with King Fahd of Saudi Arabia who donated well over £1.3 million for the construction of the modern red-brick mosque, which took nearly five years to complete in 1990.

Until then the largely Bangladeshi community in Finsbury Park had to worship in a couple of converted terraced houses next to the site of the present North London Central Mosque, near Arsenal’s football stadium.

One of the first trustees described yesterday how what was intended as a centre of religious study was hijacked by violent extremists and turned into a haven for terrorist suspects.

He and others who tried to resist this takeover were beaten up by gangs of extremists who slept in a basement room and barred them from entering their own building.

It was at the end of 1996, during a contractural battle between the board of trustees and the management committee, that a former engineering student and nightclub bouncer, Mustafa Kemal, appeared on the scene.

By then he had changed his name to Abu Hamza al-Masri and offered himself as a mediator in the management dispute while suggesting in return the trustees give him a letter allowing him to preach at the mosque.

The trustee, who asked for his name not to be used as he fears reprisals, said that it swiftly became apparent that Abu Hamza was using the premises to promote his own militant views.

“He was always an intimidating figure but we told him his views were inappropriate and he should leave,” the trustee said yesterday.

Abu Hamza, who had lost both hands and an eye in an explosion in Afghanistan, had already been barred from mosques in Burnley where he had tried to establish a base for his group, the Supporters of Sharia. He proved more difficult to evict from Finsbury Park.

“When we met him again to ask him to go, he had several heavily built minders with him who told us that we had to leave,” the source added.

In October 1998 the trustees went to the High Court to stop him from preaching.

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