JAILED radical Muslim cleric Abu Hamza al-Masri sent teams of young supporters around Britain with orders to take over other mosques. Rival clerics said they were threatened by gangs claiming to be members of Abu Hamza's Supporters of Sharia group. Some of the rival imams were beaten up inside their own mosques, and the worshippers were bullied into finding somewhere else to pray -- but police refused to intervene.
Abu Hamza wanted to acquire more places where he and his lieutenants could brainwash a generation of young men and send them off to terror training camps abroad. Followers who tired of his behaviour said he behaved like a mafia godfather in dealing with anyone who opposed him. Two rival imams in London needed hospital treatment after being attacked, but no police action was taken. In one of Abu Hamza's sermons, heard by the jury during his trial at the Old Bailey, he boasted about his heavy-handed tactics, saying: "If the people know you are firm, they will back down. They all back down."
His takeover attempts began in the late 1980s when he joined a group of Algerian-born radicals trying to take over the Central London Mosque in Regent's Park. Fazli Ali, 66, the former estates manager at the mosque, said: "Hamza and his cronies threatened me several times. I was head of security but they even threatened to kill me. Ours was a peaceful place, but he wanted to turn it into a political arena." The leadership of the mosque banned Abu Hamza from their premises, so he sought out other and more vulnerable targets around Britain. |