Six British Muslims found guilty in terror trial
Six British Muslims, including Abu Izzadeen who heckled the then Home Secretary John Reid live on television, have been convicted of terrorist fund-raising and inciting terrorism overseas.
Six British Muslims, including Abu Izzadeen who heckled the then Home Secretary John Reid live on television, have been convicted of terrorist fund-raising and inciting terrorism overseas.
The guilty verdicts at the Kingston Crown Court follow a three-and-a-half month trial.
Prosecutor Jonathan Laidlaw said the men had delivered or contributed to a series of "emotive and inflammatory" speeches that made appeals for money and volunteers to join the fight against US-led troops in Iraq.
The defendants were all members of the militant group Al-Muhajiroun. The group, led by the preacher Omar Bakri Mohammed who has since left the country, believed in the creation of an Islamic state.
Izzadeen (32), born Trevor Brooks to a Christian Jamaican family in London, repeatedly disrupted Reid at a speech in city in September 2006, calling him "an enemy of Islam" and "a tyrant" in an event broadcast live on television.
The charges arise from speeches and preaching the men were involved in at London's Regents Park Mosque on November 9, 2004.
"These are extremely serious offences. The overwhelming majority of people totally reject the deeply offencive views peddled by these defendants. They deliberately set out to incite people to carry out terrorist acts," head of the Metropolitan Police Service's Counter Terrorism Command John McDowall said.
Also found guilty of terrorist fund-raising were Simon Keeler and Abdul Muhid, both of White Chapel in East London, and Shah Jalal Hussain, who is missing after failing to appear in court. Abdul Rehman Saleem, of East London, and Ibrahim Abdullah Hassan, of Leyton, East London were found guilty of inciting terrorism overseas along with Izzadeen and Keeler.