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Radical Islamic cleric Abu Hamza is today challenging his convictions for incitement to murder and race-hate offences. In February, Hamza, 48, was convicted by an Old Bailey jury of 11 of the 15 charges he faced and was jailed for seven years. His appeal is expected to last two days and will be heard by the Lord Chief Justice, Lord Phillips, sitting with Mr Justice Penry-Davey and Mr Justice Pitchford at the Court of Appeal in London. During Hamza's month-long trial the prosecution alleged he was a recruiting sergeant for global terrorism. He was given the go-ahead to challenge his...

BRITAIN has resorted to detaining as an illegal immigrant a man regarded as one of al-Qaeda’s most dangerous terrorists. Abu Doha, whose various aliases include “The Doctor”, has been in Belmarsh highsecurity jail for almost six years facing extradition to the United States on charges of running a jihad training camp in Afghanistan and plotting to blow up Los Angeles airport. But the US has been forced to drop the case against him after an informer refused to give evidence. A British judge described the extremist network created by Abu Doha as “one of the most significant groups of terrorists...

Al-Qaida's new leader in Iraq said the country's Sunni politicians were treacherous and warned of more attacks against U.S.-led forces there, according to an Internet audio tape posted on Thursday. "The fire has not and will not be put out and our swords, which have been coloured with your blood are thirsty for more of your rotting heads," said the speaker, identified in the recording as Abu Hamza al-Muhajir. "You (Sunni politicians) have lied to yourself and betrayed your nation ... You claimed you will enter the political process to ease the hardship of the Sunnis, but you were their...

LONDON - Four men arrested on suspicion of organizing terrorist training camps in Britain were tracked by Spanish investigators earlier this year as they traveled through Spain from France en route to North Africa, officials said Monday. The statement from Spain's interior ministry was the first public indication of an international link to the probe, which led to the arrests late Friday and early Saturday of 14 people suspected of training and recruiting for terror attacks. British prosecutors, meanwhile, said eight other people allegedly involved in a separate plot to blow up U.S.-bound aircraft are unlikely to be brought to...

BRITISH police investigating a terror plot by Islamic saboteurs have found chemical warfare protection suits in a north London mosque. The discovery has shocked detectives, who believe the find confirms supporters of Osama bin Laden were planning a poison attack on civilian targets in Britain. Scotland Yard and MI5 detectives had kept the discovery of the nuclear, biological and chemical (NBC) suits secret. They feared disclosing it would spark panic. Government ministers have warned any suggestion that the Finsbury Park mosque had been involved would have worrying racist overtones. Police initially revealed they had seized a cache of weapons, including...

Dad is a coward, a hypocrite and he deserves to rot in jail By Rajeev Syal In an exclusive interview, Donna Traverso tells The Times about the man who tore her family apart SHE knew him simply as Dad, a kindly presence in her life who would tell her that she was “his little girl” as she nestled in his muscular arms. Now Donna Traverso, 25, despises her former stepfather Abu Hamza al-Masri for shattering her family and abandoning her at the age of 5. In her first interview, she tells The Times how the Egyptian disappeared with her beloved...

THE arrest of a Sydney student on terrorism training charges has intensified the police focus on four Sydney men allegedly linked to a Pakistan-based terror cell that ASIO suspects plotted to bomb Australian military bases last year. Fourth-year medical student Izhar Ul-Haque has spent his second night in the nation's highest-security prison, the Supermax at Goulburn, after becoming only the second person charged in Australia with terrorism offences since the 1978 Hilton bombing. NSW Premier Bob Carr confirmed yesterday that his Government had been asked to make preparations to house more than one suspect in its prison system. "We were...

A WAR of words of almost biblical proportions has broken out between Australia's most senior Catholic and a Muslim leader. Islamic Information and Services Network president Abu Hamza, of Coburg, wants the Bible banned because it incites violence. He called Archbishop George Pell a "clown" for his comments this year that the Koran was full of "invocations to violence". Mr Hamza told his followers the Bible, particularly the Old Testament, was full of murder and seemed to condone rape. Dr Pell replied from the Vatican this week: "I am not sure how much Mr Hamza's comments improve the situation, but...

BAGHDAD, Iraq - The U.S. military said Thursday the man claiming to be the new al-Qaida in Iraq leader is Abu Ayyub al-Masri, an Egyptian with ties to Osama bin Laden's deputy, Ayman al-Zawahri. Maj. Gen. William Caldwell, a U.S. military spokesman in Baghdad, said al-Masri apparently is the same person that al-Qaida in Iraq identified in a Web posting last week as its new leader — Abu Hamza al-Muhajer, a nom de guerre. Al-Muhajer claimed to have succeeded Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who was killed in a June 7 U.S. airstrike, and vowed to avenge him in threatening Web statements...

London, Asharq Al-Awsat- Al Qaeda in Iraq’s new leader is more violent than his predecessor, warned an Egyptian Islamist on Monday. Following the death of Abu Musab al Zarqawi and five others after two 500-pound bombs were dropped in a US air raid on a safe house near the restive northern Iraqi city of Baquba on Wednesday, al Qaeda in the Land of Two Rivers appointed Abu Hamza al Muhajir (the immigrant) as its new leader. An Islamist leader told Asharq al Awsat on Monday, on condition of anonymity, that Abu Hamza is renowned for his knowledge of Shariaa and...

CAIRO, Egypt - Al-Qaida in Iraq said in a Web statement posted Monday that a militant named Abu Hamza al-Muhajer was the group's new leader. Al-Muhajer succeeds Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who was killed Wednesday by a U.S. airstrike on his hideout northeast of Baghdad, Iraq. The successor's name — a pseudonym, as most militants are known by — was not immediately known and did not appear to be on any U.S. lists of terrorists with rewards on their heads. The name al-Muhajer, Arabic for "immigrant," suggested he was not Iraqi. Al-Muhajer is a common alias among Islamic militants, referring to...

In the wake of the terrible terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, Britain drafted UN resolution 1373 which called on all governments to "Deny safe haven to those who finance, plan, support or commit terrorist acts, or who provide safe havens; and to prevent those who finance, plan, facilitate or commit terrorist acts from using their respective territories for those purposes against other states." That elementary measure was also a piece of blatant hypocrisy from the British government. For at least a decade, and possibly much longer, it had been covert British policy to provide, in Britain, a safe haven...

The Times February 09, 2006 Police had Hamza 'murder evidence' 7 years ago By Sean O’Neill, Daniel McGrory and Philip Webster Phone-tap record inadmissable in UK will be used by Americans Listen to Hamza (clip1) Listen to Hamza (clip2) AMERICA will use phone tap evidence gathered by Britain seven years ago to try to jail Abu Hamza al-Masri for life on terrorist offences. Bugged conversations between the radical imam and the leader of a gang that kidnapped 16 Western tourists in Yemen are banned in the British courts. Yet the same wiretap material, amassed by British Intelligence, will be central...

Christian Europe is at risk of becoming Eurabia, outbred and overtaken by Islamic immigration, and a crucial battleground on the clash of civilizations that seems to be under way. [...] This alarmist view is fueled by three dangerous and misleading myths [...] that there is any such phenomenon as European Islam[;] that the native Europeans have been so sapped of their reproductive vigor that the higher birth rates of the Muslim immigrants threaten to replace traditionally Christian Europe[;] that this great wave of immigration is necessarily an ominous challenge to Christian Europe...

LONDON - A British jury convicted radical Muslim cleric Abu Hamza al-Masri on Tuesday of fomenting racial hatred and inciting his followers to kill non-Muslims. Al-Masri, 47, the former imam at London's Finsbury Park mosque, also was convicted of possessing a terrorist document and threatening or abusive recordings. Al-Masri, Britain's best-known Islamist orator, could receive a maximum sentence of life in prison. The jury of seven men and five women found al-Masri guilty on seven of nine charges of soliciting murder. He also was convicted on two of four charges of stirring racial hatred. Though asked to stand for the...

Here are two items on different topics related by their common absurdity.Reuters is reporting that some of the ransom money paid for the German government for the release of Susan Osthoff (the archaeologist who was kidnapped by Iraqi militants and later released in exchange for Mohammad Ali Hammadi, the man who killed Navy diver Robert Stethem in a hijacked TWA flight) was found on her effects. (Hat tip: Davids Medienkritik) BERLIN (Reuters) - Part of the ransom money alleged to have been paid by the German government to win the freedom of Iraq hostage Susanne Osthoff last month was found...

Hamza denounces racism on the stand . Alleged race hate cleric Abu Hamza has denied inciting violence against non-Muslims, saying "racism is one of the greatest sins".

SUICIDE bombing is a legitimate tool of war, regarded by religious scholars as “the highest form of martyrdom”, Abu Hamza al-Masri told an Old Bailey jury yesterday. The radical Muslim cleric, who is facing charges of soliciting murder and inciting racial hatred, said that he condoned suicide attacks if they were the only way that Muslims had of defending themselves. Abu Hamza sought to explain remarks that he had made in a video of a lecture delivered in Luton in 1997. Asked, during his second day of evidence, about the legitimacy of “martyrdom operations”, he said: “If it is the...

COPIES of the Koran were handed to the jurors in the Abu Hamza trial yesterday as his defence argued that some of the cleric’s “offensive” statements were drawn directly from Islam’s holy book. Edward Fitzgerald, QC, for the defence, said that Abu Hamza’s interpretation of the Koran was that it imposed an obligation on Muslims to do jihad and fight in the defence of their religion. He said that the Crown case against the former imam of Finsbury Park Mosque was “simplistic in the extreme”. He added: “It is said he was preaching murder, but he was actually preaching from...

LIFE STYLE EXTRA (UK) - Muslim fanatic Abu Hamza had a hate list of the enemies of Islam, with the Jews and Christians listed at number two and three, the Old Bailey Heard today (tues). The former Imam of Finsbury Park Mosque said claimed Jews were the sons of monkeys and their influence was growing daily by invading the minds of Muslims through television, radio and literature. The list of hate was revealed in a 90 minute long audio tape anti-Semitic rant entitled 'Enemies of Islam II', recorded sometime in 1998 or 1999, which was played to the court. Egyptian-born...