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Feroz Abbasi	Feroz Abbasi	Taliban	Afghanistan				20020701
	Feroz Abbasi	al-Qaeda	International				20030705

Britain

U.S. Seeks Islamic Cleric's Extradition

2007-05-18

The United States argued Thursday for the extradition of a radical Islamic cleric imprisoned in Britain, accusing him of involvement in a global conspiracy to wage terrorist attacks on the U.S. and other Western countries. Abu Hamza al-Masri has been charged in the United States with trying to establish a terrorist training camp in Oregon, conspiring to take hostages in Yemen and facilitating terrorist training in Afghanistan. He is serving a seven-year sentence in Britain for fomenting racial hatred and urging his followers to kill non-Muslims. "He advocated the defense of Islam through unlawful, violent and armed aggression," Hugo Keith, a lawyer representing the U.S. government, said during a hearing in a London court. The hearing started a day later than scheduled because al-Masri was recovering from an operation to remove a bone from the stump of one of his arms. He lost both arms below the elbows and an eye fighting the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s. He now has hooks for hands, and a glass eye. No problem, the Russians can have the parts and we'll take the rest. Or just the severed head, whatever is easier. Al-Masri was arrested on an U.S. extradition warrant in May 2004, but the process was put on hold while he stood trial in Britain and then appealed his convictions. In January, the House of Lords denied al-Masri permission to make further appeals, and his extradition proceedings went back on the agenda. Al-Masri's lawyer, Alun Jones, said the extradition application should be rejected because he believed some of the evidence against the cleric was extracted by torturing a defense witness. Jones did not say where the alleged torture may have occurred but the witness, Feroz Abbasi, was a former British Guantanamo Bay detainee. He was initially arrested by Afghan forces and handed over to U.S. authorities. The court heard that Hamza helped pay for Abbasi to travel to Afghanistan. "The court ought to conduct here an inquiry," he said. "There is reasonable cause to suspect this extradition request is founded in significant parts on evidence obtained by torture." There's no evidence that anyone at Gitmo has had fingernails removed, though they may have been made to stand in an uncomfortable position and their Qurans may have been handled by ungloved, infidel hands. But Jones is going to spout the pomo agenda for all it's worth since he has nothing else to offer his client. Outlining the U.S. case, Keith said Hamza provided a satellite phone and 500 hours of airtime to a group responsible for the 1998 kidnapping of 16 western tourists in Yemen. Four of the tourists died in a shootout between the abductors and Yemeni security officials. Keith said the planned training camp in Oregon would have been used to prepare recruits to "kill enemies of Islam" in Afghanistan, training them in weapons use, hand-to-hand combat and martial arts. "The general allegation is that Mr. Hamza is a member of a global conspiracy to wage jihad against the U.S. and other Western countries," Keith said. "Jihad carried out in numerous parts of the world -- the U.K., Afghanistan, Yemen and U.S." And Iraq, and Somalia, and Algeria, and Morocco, and Spain, and most especially in North Wazoo ... Keith also detailed another indictment that claimed al-Masri funded travel to Afghanistan for two men who pleaded guilty in April 2003 to plotting to set up the training camp in Bly, Ore. If tried and convicted in the United States, Al-Masri, the former head preacher at London's Finsbury Park Mosque, would carry out the rest of his sentence in Britain before serving any prison term in Ice Station Zebra the U.S.

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Down Under

Hicks 'al-Qaeda's 24 carat golden boy'

2007-02-23

DAVID Hicks was al-Qaeda's "24 carat Golden Boy" and was willing to undertake suicide missions, including crashing a plane into a building, a former Guantanamo Bay inmate has claimed. In a 148-page document written for US government terrorism investigators, British former inmate Feroz Abbasi wrote that Hicks wanted to "go back to Australia and rob and kill Jews". Abbasi's account also made the claim that Hicks wanted to crash a plane into a building and details the Australian terror suspect's behaviour in al-Qai'da training camps in Afghanistan. The claims made by Abbasi, who was released from Guantanamo Bay in 2005 and has never been charged, are detailed in next week's Time magazine. In a signed statement made on October 20, 2004, Abbasi - who was arrested in Afghanistan in 2001 after being caught carrying a hand grenade in his underpants - repudiated his written account of Hicks in its entirety, describing the allegations made against the Australian as "ludicrous in their content (yet believed by dense investigators)". According to Time, Hicks was nicknamed "Golden Boy" because he was so clearly al-Qaeda's favourite recruit. Abbasi wrote in his original statement that Hicks, a former kangaroo skinner and father of two who converted to Islam, wanted to "go out with that last big adrenalin rush". "He once told me in Afghanistan that if he were to go into a building of Jews with an automatic weapon or as a suicide bomber he would have to say something like, 'there is no God but Allah' ect (sic) just so he could see the look of fear on their faces, before he takes them out," Abbasi wrote. "I can only speculate as to why he likes capturing defenceless animals ... All these factors can only point to the reasons why he wanted to hijack a civilian plane and plough it into a civilian building." Australian authorities have long maintained that Hicks received the highest level of terrorist training of any caucasian who attended al-Qai'da training camps in Afghanistan. Hicks, 31, from the northern Adelaide suburb of Salisbury, was captured in Afghanistan in November 2001 and has since been held in Guantanamo Bay in Cuba. He is yet to stand trial under the US military commission process. US judge Susan Crawford will soon decide whether to recommend charges of attempted murder and providing support for terrorism. By his own account, Abbasi first met Hicks while jogging around the al-Farooq training camp near Kandahar in southern Afghanistan. He claims the Australian was allowed to break rules while undergoing training and avoided routine punishments. "We had to stand next to a shooter and catch his bullet shells as they were ejected from the rifle before they hit the ground. Golden Boy Hicks thought it was childish and stupid and absolutely refused." Attorney-General Philip Ruddock declined to comment last night on the claims made by Abbasi.

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Down Under

Hicks admitted training with Richard Reid

2006-03-19

AUSTRALIAN terror suspect David Hicks was secretly interrogated in Guantanamo Bay by British intelligence agency MI5 and admitted to training with several terrorists including the infamous "shoe bomber" Richard Reid, according to new claims from the Blair Government. In an extraordinary twist to the Hicks saga, the British Government is using the contents of MI5's secret 2003 interview to deny the Australian detainee his application for a British passport. According to lawyers representing the Home Office, Hicks admitted during the interview to extensive terrorist training in Kashmir and Afghanistan, and also that he had met the late Abu Hafs, an al-Qaeda kingpin who was anointed by Osama bin Laden as his successor just before his violent death in 2001. The revelations emerged in Britain's High Court on Friday, as Home Secretary Charles Clarke fought an appeal against last year's ruling that he should grant Hicks British citizenship immediately, on the basis that the detainee's mother was born in Britain. Hicks' father, Terry, yesterday fought back on his son's behalf against the allegations, raising the spectre of torture, and said his son should be subject to all the protection afforded to other detainees who were British citizens. He is planning to personally ask Tony Blair for help with his son's plight when the British Prime Minister arrives in Australia next weekend. "He's not in a real good way," he said of his son. "The quicker we get him back here, the better off David will be." In London, counsel for the British Government told the High Court that the Government had sent a letter to Hicks' lawyers setting out why Mr Clarke is unwilling to make Hicks a British citizen. The Home Secretary, according to the letter, dated December last year and seen by The Sunday Age, intends to "rely on admissions made by Mr Hicks in an interview with the Security Service (known more generally as MI5) on 26 April, 2003 in Guantanamo Bay". "In particular, Mr Hicks admitted the following: attending a Lashkar Tayyaba (sic) training camp in Kashmir in around 2000 . . . attending the Al Farooq system of camps in Afghanistan in around 2001 . . . (and) receiving training in weapons and guerilla warfare." Hicks also admitted, according to the letter, "meeting and training with a number of UK nationals known to be Islamic extremists including Feroz Abbasi, Martin Mubanga, Richard Reid and Sajid Badat". Reid, the British-born "shoe bomber" who unsuccessfully attempted to blow up his sneakers on a trans-Atlantic flight in 2001, is now serving a life sentence in the US. Badat, his accomplice, was sentenced last year to 13 years in a British prison. Abbasi and Mubanga, however, are at liberty in Britain, having been released from Guantanamo Bay in January 2005. The British Government secured the release of all British citizens from the prison through a deal with the US Government, and neither Mr Abbasi nor Mr Mubanga have subsequently been charged with any offence. An irritated Michael Fordham, barrister for David Hicks, told the court it was "inconsistent" for Mr Clarke to condemn Hicks for his association with the likes of Mubanga and Abbasi. "They were in Guantanamo! They were released! They have been arrested and interviewed in this country, and no charges were laid!" he protested. Terry Hicks said the British Government was treating his son like a "political football". "If the law says he is eligible for British citizenship, well that's it," he said. "The nine Brits who were released from Guantanamo Bay probably had the same alliances, and some of the stuff that has come out about David could possibly be hearsay."

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Britain

Freed Gitmo detainees denied passports

2005-02-16

It's a trend -- first Australia, now Britain! The Government is refusing to issue passports to some of the Britons released from Guantanamo Bay last month under a rarely used law. Home Secretary Charles Clarke used powers under the Royal Prerogative to deny passport facilities to Martin Mubanga and Feroz Abbasi, the BBC Radio 4 Today programme said. It is not known whether the other two British detainees, Richard Belmar and Moazzam Begg, have also been refused passports under the powers, only used 13 times since 1947 and for the last time in 1976. The Home Office's letter to Mr Mubanga, a 32-year-old former motorcycle courier from Wembley, north London, who was arrested in Zambia and sent to the US base in Cuba, said the Home Secretary has the power to refuse passport facilities "if past or proposed activities were so demonstrably undesirable that the granting of the passport would be contrary to the public interest". Bwahahahaha.

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Britain

Martyr plan of Gitmo Briton

2005-02-05

A BRITON released from Guantanamo Bay has admitted being interviewed for advanced-level terrorist training in Afghanistan by two senior Al-Qaeda leaders and later volunteering for a "martyrdom operation". Feroz Abbasi believes he was singled out because of his western background, which would have allowed him to plan an attack without arousing as much suspicion as Arab militants. He says he was prepared to take "actions" against Jewish and American military targets as part of his personal commitment to jihad, or holy war. Abbasi's revelations are contained in a 150-page handwritten "autobiography" obtained by The Sunday Times from the US authorities. The document, in 12 chapters, provides the most comprehensive insight to date into Afghanistan's terror camps, which have been used to train thousands of Islamic extremists, some of whom are now living in western countries as Al-Qaeda "sleepers". Abbasi, 24, describes how a lack of self-esteem during childhood spurred him into militancy and led to him enrolling in courses in Afghanistan. They ranged from basic firearms training with a Kalashnikov rifle to mountain and urban warfare and intelligence gathering. He claims that other British Muslims received similar training and explains how he was captured, having been abandoned by Al-Qaeda fighters during the Afghan conflict with America and its allies. Abbasi, of Croydon, south London, wrote the statement at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba in 2003. It was used as evidence at a US military tribunal at Camp Delta before his release.

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Britain

Al-Qaeda rule #18 - Always claim to have been tortured after being detained

2005-01-30

Feroz Abbasi, Martin Mubanga, Moazzam Begg and Richard Belmar finally arrived back in Britain last week after their three-year imprisonment in Guantanamo, to near-universal acclaim and sympathy. Their lawyers insist that they are totally innocent of any involvement in terrorism. The men themselves say that they have been tortured, and that the admissions made by three of them — that they had been recruited by al-Qa'eda , and undergone training in terrorist camps in Afghanistan — are completely false. The horrors of what undoubtedly took place in Abu Ghraib, the prison in Iraq, have convinced many people that the Americans must also have administered hideous tortures to everyone they imprisoned at Guantanamo. In fact it is not at all clear that the Americans have tortured anyone in Guantanamo. Some of the "sexual tortures" — women interrogators rubbing their breasts against the backs of those being questioned — sound, to Western ears, too close to the comfy chair of Monty Python's Spanish Inquistion to be taken seriously. Surprisingly, perhaps, the US army authorities took them very seriously: they dismissed for "inappropriate conduct" a female interrogator who was found to have run her fingers through one detainee's hair and sat on his lap during an interrogation. The detainees in Guantanamo were certainly humiliated and made to feel extremely uncomfortable. They may have been deprived of light and sleep and forced to stand for long periods. But did it constitute torture? The US Department of Defence insists that none of the Britons even alleged they had been tortured or abused until October last year — and that when US officials investigated those claims, they not only found they had no foundation, but that one of the Britons had assaulted one of his interrogators.

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Britain

More on the Gitmo Brits

2005-01-30

One of the Guantanamo Bay detainees freed in London came face to face with Osama Bin Laden at a terrorist training camp, according to court documents revealed today. Richard Belmar, 25, and three others, were released without charge by Scotland Yard this week after officers concluded that there was not evidence to charge them with an offence. But the official US documents allege that all four were trained by al Qaeda in battlefield tactics and the use of assault weapons. According to US Department of Justice transcripts of a military tribunal held last October, Mr Belmar admitted to living with Bin Laden as he finalised his plans for the September 11 attacks. He is also reported to have been a disciple of Bin Laden's "Ambassador in Europe" Abu Qatada - who is soon to be freed from Belmarsh jail. Mr Belmar, of St Johns Wood, said he did not realise he was at terrorist training camp and thought it was a "military camp for Muslims". And the difference is...? But when asked if he, "received basic weapons, war tactics and navigation training at a terrorist training camp?", Mr Belmar is alleged to have replied: "That is true." All the detainees are accused of being al Qaeda members, according to the transcripts. Feroz Abbasi, 24 of Croydon, is said to have gone to Afghanistan to train to fight Americans and Jews, according to the transcripts obtained by the Sun. When asked about his role, he launched into a rant against "terrorist America". Martin Mubanga, 32, from Wembley, was seized in Zambia and is accused by the US of being an al Qaeda member and fighting coalition forces in Afghanistan after receiving "advanced military training". Mr Mubanga denied all the allegations and later retracted his statement from the tribunal. The fourth Britain, Moazzam Begg, 36, from Birmingham, refused to take part in the tribunal.

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Britain

All 4 Gitmo Brits were trained by al-Qaeda. Wotta surprise.

2005-01-28

The four Britons who returned home free men from the US prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, had all been trained by the Al-Qaeda terror network, a newspaper said, citing allegations contained in US documents. The Sun said it had obtained US documents showing that Richard Belmar, 25, had confessed to having come face to face with Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden at a training camp in Kandahar, Afghanistan. Belmar also admitted that Al-Qaeda had taught him how to use assault weapons and carry out battlefield tactics. He had lived with Bin Laden and his aides as the terrorist leader fine-tuned his plans for the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States. The other three who returned home with him -- Moazzem Begg, 36, Martin Mubanga, 31, and Feroz Abbasi, 25 -- also allegedly received weapons training, according to the documents published in The Sun. Though the four were released without charge after their return to Britain on Tuesday following up to three years in Guantanamo Bay, the Pentagon said the four individuals still pose a "significant threat." But British police have said that statements and information gleaned by US and British intelligence interrogators at Cuba's Camp Delta are inadmissible in a British court. According to the documents published by The Sun, Abbasi is accused by the US government of going to Afghanistan on a Jihad mission to train to fight Americans and Jews. He was allegedly trained to carry out surveillance and ambushes and learned how to fire Kalashnakov's and rocket-propelled grenades, met top Al-Qaeda leaders, heard bin Laden speak and beat up a suspected spy who later identified him. Begg, 36, was allegedly an enemy combatant and member of Al-Qaeda. He was alleged to have recruited others, provided money and support to Al-Qaeda training camps and received extensive military training, according to the US documents published by The Sun. His family claim it was a case of mistaken identity. Mubanga, 32, was accused by the United States of being an Al-Qaeda member and fighting the coalition in Afghanistan after having received advanced military training. When he was arrested he was said to have been plotting to carry out surveillance of 33 Jewish organizations in New York. Mubanga denied all the allegations and retracted all statements made at his tribunal hearing. All four have denied they are linked to Al-Qaeda.

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Britain

Clarke to decide the fate of released Gitmo suspects

2005-01-26

Charles Clarke will attempt to resolve the crisis surrounding controversial anti-terrorist laws today when he sets out the fate of foreign terror suspects detained without trial. The home secretary will tell the Commons how the government intends to deal with detainees, after the law lords ruled before Christmas that their incarceration was unlawful under the European convention on human rights. The final details of the plans were still being discussed by the cabinet last night but a statement to parliament was scheduled for lunchtime today. There was speculation that the government would be forced to release at least some of the 11, most of whom are held in Belmarsh prison in London. But civil rights groups warned the government against any attempt to place the suspects, in effect, under house arrest. There were fears ministers could introduce orders placing restrictions on the detainees' behaviour. This would mean keeping tight control over them while not actually confining them in prison. There was even speculation the government might try to challenge its obligations under European law. Shami Chakrabarti, director of Liberty, the civil liberties group, said: "I'm delighted that the new home secretary is finally responding to the House of Lords' damning verdict on detention without trial. I hope, however, that he will honour the spirit as well as the letter of this judgment and fully comply with human rights values in any new anti-terror measures." Mr Clarke has signalled that he wants to secure deals with north African countries to enable some of the suspects to be deported without the risk of being tortured or sentenced to death in their homelands. The development came as the last four British detainees to return from Guantänamo Bay were being questioned last night by detectives at a central London police station. Moazzam Begg, Feroz Abbasi, Martin Mubanga and Richard Belmar were arrested as they arrived back in Britain yesterday after almost three years in custody at the US base in Cuba. The men are now expected to sue the US government for compensation. Shortly after the RAF aircraft carrying them touched down, they were taken to Paddington Green for questioning. Their return prompted fresh calls for the government to rethink its anti-terror legislation. Edward Nally, president of the Law Society, said ministers ought now to "pause for thought". The decision to arrest the men was taken in spite of protests from Muslim leaders and a plea from their lawyers not to detain them. The US suspects the four, who were captured three years ago during the war in Afghanistan, of links with the al-Qaeda terrorist organisation. Their lawyers say they did nothing wrong. The men's families are expecting to see them today.

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Terror Networks & Islam

US accuses Briton of being suicide bomber

2004-11-21

TONY BLAIR is facing new controversy over his efforts to secure the release of the Britons held at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba after America accused one of the detainees of being an Al-Qaeda terrorist who volunteered for a suicide mission. American court papers revealed for the first time this weekend say that Feroz Abbasi, a college dropout, had received advanced military training at terror camps in Afghanistan and was present on at least two occasions when Osama Bin Laden visited. Abbasi, 24, from Croydon, south London, is alleged to have met other senior Al-Qaeda figures and fought with a crack unit of Islamic terrorists during the Afghan conflict with America and its allies. The revelations — the most detailed account to date of the US case against any of the four Britons at Guantanamo Bay — are likely to leave Blair with a diplomatic dilemma. The new documents obtained by The Sunday Times have been filed in a district court in Washington DC where lawyers acting for Abbasi and the three other British prisoners are challenging their detention. The papers outline the proceedings of a military tribunal which was convened at Guantanamo Bay last month to determine whether Abbasi should continue to be held as an "enemy combatant". On the basis of the evidence presented to them — only some of which has been unclassified — the three-man tribunal panel unanimously found Abbasi to be "a member of, or affiliated with, Al-Qaeda".

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Britain

British Official Rips U.S. Guantanamo Plan

2004-06-25

LONDON (AP) - U.S. plans to use a military tribunal to prosecute terror suspects at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, is unacceptable because it would not provide a fair trial by international standards, Britain's attorney general said. "There are certain principles on which there can be no compromise," Lord Goldsmith said in copy of a speech he planned to make to the International Criminal Law Association on Friday. "Fair trial is one of those, which is the reason we in the UK have been unable to accept that the U.S. military tribunals proposed for those detained at Guantanamo Bay offer sufficient guarantees of a fair trial in accordance with international standards." "International standards": is that the same sort of oxymoron as "United Nations Human Rights Commission"? Two of the four British nationals still held at Camp Delta - Feroz Abbasi of London, and Moazzam Begg of Birmingham - were among Bush's initial list of six people to be tried by the tribunal. In the past, Goldsmith and Foreign Secretary Jack Straw have said the United States should either try the British detainees at Guantanamo in accordance with international standards or return them to their homeland. Straw has said "the military commissions as presently constituted would not provide the process which we would afford British nationals." So advise your nationals not to be taken prisoner while fighting the US in far-off lands. The United States says the prisoners are "enemy combatants" not prisoners of war, and can be tried by military tribunals. But human rights groups wholly in thrall to the LLL have called the detentions is unlawful.

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Britain

Five Britons Freed From Guantanamo

2004-03-10

Five British nationals were on their way home yesterday from the US detention camp in Cuba for suspected Al-Qaeda and Taleban fighters, leaving behind four compatriots to face possible trial by a US military court for terrorist activities. The five were crossing the North Atlantic from Guantanamo Bay aboard a Royal Air Force C-17 transport plane, accompanied by officers of the Metropolitan Police anti-terrorist squad, a police statement said. They were expected to touch down at RAF Northolt Air Base, northwest of London, to be taken to the high security Paddington Green police station in the British capital for questioning. “Two independent observers, one from the Muslim community, are on the flight which is also being videoed by police,” London’s Metropolitan Police said in a statement that anticipated concern about the five men’s treatment. I'll bet the taxpayers paid for their tickets, too. Oh, how solicitous we are! Eighty-eight other prisoners of various nationalities have been released from Guantanamo Bay, and a dozen others transferred to their home countries for continued detention, including seven Russians turned over on March 1. The five being repatriated to Britain are Ruhal Ahmed, Asif Iqbal, Shafiq Rasul, Tarek Dergoul and Jamal Al-Harith. Good British names, every one. None o' those Percy's and Cecils and Nigels, by Gawd! Still in Guantanamo Bay are Feroz Abbasi, Moazzam Begg, Martin Mubanga and Richard Belmar, who according to Home Secretary David Blunkett had been captured in the “combat zone” in Afghanistan.

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