ABU HAMZA AL-MASRI used his position as imam of the Finsbury Park mosque to preach virulently anti-Semitic sermons, the Old Bailey was told yesterday.

Videos of the radical cleric delivering a talk after Friday prayers at the mosque were shown to the jury at his trial on charges of inciting murder and racial hatred.

Abu Hamza, 47, denies 13 such charges and two counts of possessing a terrorist manual and planning to distribute offensive recordings.

The preacher was shown on screen addressing the congregation at the mosque in October 2000. He punched the air as he described the Nazi Holocaust as a punishment from God.

In a sermon in Arabic, a translation of which was read to the court by David Perry, for the prosecution, Abu Hamza said that God had decreed that the Jewish people should face further torture.

He said: “Every time they lit the fire for war God has put it out. And this is the imminent result and this is a universal result too. Hitler looked at their dealings and their treachery. They wanted to deceive him in his war. Some were dealing with the Allies against him.

“So he killed them and punished them and this is a sunna (Islamic rule). And they will be inflicted with that again when the stones and the Sharia start talking to the Muslim — you the worshipper of God . . . This is a Jew dealing in usury, so come and kill him.

“This shows that the Jews will be destroyed, the State will be destroyed and some of the Jews will be running around hiding behind the trees and the stones and then they get cursed by the earth until there is not one of them left.”

In a separate video, Abu Hamza told a group of people that shoplifting and theft by Muslims from non-believers was permitted. Students were not required to repay loans and identity fraud by Muslim refugees was allowed, according to his interpretation of Islam.

In other passages from his lectures, the court heard Abu Hamza telling his audience that they were allowed to kill non-Muslims.

He said: “Killing a kuffar (unbeliever) who is fighting you is OK. Killing a kuffar for any reason, you can say it is OK even if there is no reason for it.”

The cleric reserved particular ire for the owners of off-licences and authorities that granted licences for the sale of alcohol.

“Don’t go to the man in the wine shop and tell him, ‘Please why are you selling the wine, come to the mosque’. Make sure the person who gave him the licence for that wine shop does not exist any more on the earth. Finish him up. Give him dawa (the spread of Islam), if he doesn’t respect dawa, kill him.”

The trial continues.

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