Abu Hamza 'boasted of Bosnia action'

Abu Hamza 'boasted of Bosnia action'
The Times (London) - January 17, 2006, Tuesday; HOME NEWS; Pg. 16

By: Sean O'Neill

Videotapes show the radical preacher claiming to have dispensed advice to Mujahidin fighters, reports Sean O'Neill

Abu Hamza al-Masri told his followers that he was a veteran of the Balkan wars of the 1990s, in which Arab Mujahidin went to Bosnia to fight the Serbs, the Old Bailey was told yesterday.

The former imam of the Finsbury Park Mosque in North London was seen talking about the Bosnian conflict on a videotape shown to the jury, believed to have been made in 1998 in Birmingham, possibly in a private house.

As he urged his listeners to travel to Albania and Kosovo to support the Islamic cause, the Egyptian-born cleric recalled his own jihad experiences. He said he had advised Algerian fighters in Bosnia and argued with other Mujahidin leaders about demands that they give up their arms or leave the country at the end of the conflict.

He said he was anxious that the Mujahidin did not repeat mistakes that were made in Afghanistan. "As Allah is my witness, I had to leave Bosnia straight away after the last battlefield."

He praised his former comrades for their bravery but not their tactics: "They are very good brothers, they are fighting the best fighters, they are the best people to sacrifice but when it came to management they reached the wrong conclusions," he said.

The cleric, who has British citizenship, said that fighters should remain in small units, hiding in the mountains, and not fall under the control of rich Saudi benefactors as, he claimed, happened in Bosnia.

He told his audience they could discover what was happening by making trips to troubled countries on their holidays. "Any brothers that can go there we can employ them to work there. You can teach people English but instead of teaching 'John kissed Rebecca', you tell them 'Abdul killed Richard', something like that."

In another recording, made at his mosque in 2000, Abu Hamza said: "It is a time for you and me and everybody to sacrifice, it's a time to prove that we are not here in the West just for the honey pot, just to take and not to give anything. My dear brothers, if you can go then go. If you can't go, sponsor; if you can't sponsor, speak. If you can't do all of this, do all of that. If you can send your children, send them. You must help. You must have a stand with your heart, with your tongue, with your money, with your hand, with your sword, with your Kalashnikov.

"Anything that will help the intifada, just do it. If it is killing, do it. If it is paying, pay, if it is ambushing, ambush, if it is poisoning, poison. You help your brothers, you help Islam in any way you like it, anywhere you like it. They are all kuffar (unbelievers) and they are all acting and fighting us as one body and we should give them back as one body."

The jury was read extracts from other sermons by Abu Hamza and shown other video recordings in which he repeatedly returned to his themes of fighting and killing for Islam. The cleric said in one tape: "There is no drop of liquid loved more by Allah than the liquid of blood."

Abu Hamza, 47, who has had both his arms amputated, followed proceedings from the dock where he has the help of a legal assistant to turn the pages of transcripts of his sermons.

He has pleaded not guilty to nine charges of soliciting murder, four of stirring up race hatred, one of possessing offensive recordings and one of possession of a terrorist manual, the Encyclopedia of the Afghani Jihad. The trial continues.