UK cleric Abu Hamza's trial opens [Captain Hook]

CNN ^ | July 5, 2005

[Alouette]

LONDON, England (AP) -- Radical Islamic cleric Abu Hamza al-Mazri has appeared in a London court on charges including encouraging the murder of Jews and other non-Muslims.

Tuesday had been set for the start of Abu Hamza's trial, but the first session was taken up with legal arguments, which are expected to continue all week. Court orders forbid any reporting of the arguments, which take place without a jury present.

Abu Hamza, wearing a blue smock and with neatly trimmed gray hair and beard, was surrounded by four guards as he stood in the dock at the Central Criminal Court.

He pleaded innocent to all charges at a hearing in January.

"From my point of view and Abu Hamza's point of view, we don't see Muslims as terrorists, we see the Western governments as the real terrorists," the cleric's spokesman, Abu Abdullah, said in a telephone interview.

[Alouette]

[handy old one]

Where is the alligator with the clock that drives Hook mad??

[TheOtherOne]

Is that Fisk in the background? Ha ha ha. I haven't heard much of his yapping lately, is he still around?

[TheOtherOne]

Yup, that him.

[Alouette]

It's an old Photoshop, I'll have to update it with bin Galloway.

[SJackson]

If you'd like to be on this middle east/political ping list, please FR mail me.

..........................................

[sheik yerbouty]

The crocodile ate him..

[Alexander Rubin]

Yep.

[mississippi red-neck]

The Egyptian-born cleric -- who has one eye and hooks for hands, which he says were lost fighting Soviet troops in Afghanistan in the 1980s --

Sounds to me more likely he failed Bomb Making - 101.

Or maybe he just couldn't read the instructions with His Acme Bomb Building Kit since they where written in English and Spanish.