Reporting the truth: The secret is out1. Even before 9/11 I had started to take a keen interest in the activities of Abu Hamza, the imam of Finsbury Park mosque and his organisation Supporters of Shariah. Soon after 9/11 I started a sting ‘honey pot’ web-site called www.islamic-news.co.uk with the help of a friend based in America
2. http://web.archive.org/web/20020804062340/http://islamic-news.co.uk/inde...
3. The web-site published radical Islamic web links that led the user straight onto other terrorist sites. I used the pseudonym Pervez Khan to contact Abu Hamza, the notorious cleric of Finsbury Park mosque both by email and on the phone. I contacted the operators of other extremist web sites like the Kashmir Media Service http://www.kmsnews.org/ and was soon placed on their press list. When the press statements arrived I would copy and paste them into an email and post onto to Abu Hamza at Finchley Park mosque. The idea behind my sting web site was to gain an insight at what the extremist Islamic world were plotting against the non Islamic world.
4. The sting was already making good progress as I had given the FBI access to the web-stats of my site www.islamic-news.co.uk (now offline). Abu Hamza's web master had placed a link from his Supporters of Shariah web-site to mine and I had given the passwords to an American diplomat in Mexico who forwarded the information to the New York office of the FBI. They monitored everyone who logged onto Islamic-news from Abu Hamza's www.SupportersOfShariah.com web site. http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://supportersofshariah.org
5. What many people never knew at the time and still do not know is firstly the FBI requested the Anti Terrorist Squad in London to visit my home and get a written statement giving them permission to monitor my web site traffic; and secondly that James Ujamaa Abu Hamza's web-master was based in America. He was the first person to click on the link between the two sites after he placed it to check it was working. In doing so he revealed his I.P. address, which enabled the FBI to track him down and arrest him.
6. I produce as exhibit GJ 1 true copy of the statement that I had given to Anti-Terrorism branch for FBI.
Abu Hamza contacted for jihad recruitment videos
7. I heard nothing for a bit so I made several phone calls to Abu Hamza at the Finsbury Park mosque. I spoke with him several times. He must have been on hands free? But during the calls with my limited Arabic I made it clear to him that I wanted Jihad training tapes to show other Muslims in the south of England who I could recruit and send to his mosque and to Pakistan to fight Jihad in Kashmir and Afghanistan. I would say: "as salaamu alaikum – Can I speak to SheikhAbu Hamza. It's Pervez Khan, from Islamic news. I need to speak in private". I would be put on hold and then Abu Hamza would come on the phone. I would say again "as salaamu alaikum Sheikh, I'm the owner and editor in chief of www.islamic-news.co.uk as you can see we think you are doing great work we have placed your website link on our front page and we thank you for placing our link at the top of your links page. We want to help you but to do so we need your help to recruit people for the mujahideen. We want to run several local meetings in my brother’s house and invite a group of hand picked friends from the local mosques. We want to play your video lectures and recruitment tapes to help recruit brothers for both you and my brother’s work in Kashmir with the mujahideen.
8. Hamza was very strange. He prayed down the phone in a manner that made me think he was quite mad. He thanked me for being a good Muslim and supporting the Jihad. Hamza was not there every time I rang Finchley Park mosque. A couple of times I rang to see where the video tapes were and a much younger person with better English spoke to me.
9. This is how the process of Abu Hamza trial in the USA started. A few weeks went by and a box of audio tapes arrived and a week later a package with video tapes came via the Royal Mail.
Arrest of Hamza’s web master
10. Another few weeks went by and Abu Hamza's webmaster James Ujaama was arrested on terrorism charges. At this time I did not know he was the man sat next to Hamza in one of the videos Hamza had sent me. Ujaama in the video was taking about his leader Osama bin Laden. He also talked about Dr Azzam who was bin Laden's spiritual leader, who was killed in a car bomb in Pakistan. Ujaama appeared in the video as an angry coloured American guy that shouted support for jihad as he sat next to Abu Hamza. Ujaama was also taking about jihad in Afghanistan and was claiming the FBI had got it all wrong and he had done nothing wrong and had never been to Afghanistan. In the video Ujaama says''When I was in Afghanistan - when I was in Afghanistan'' twice! It was clear from the tape in James Ujaama's very own words he had been to Afghanistan and he was clearly saying al-qaeda leaders past and present were his leaders.
11. It was to be several months before I could help the FBI turn the case on Ujaama and force him to plead guilty and become a supper grass for the American government. The tapes I had handed over to the American embassy in London and to the UK police had not been passed on to the FBI in Seattle USA.
The story makes the Sunday Mirror front page
12. I then contacted a few weeks later a British newspaper about Abu Hamza and a senior reporter came to my house. The story made the front page of the Sunday Mirror. It was the first real anti Abu Hamza story in my campaign to rid the UK of Abu Hamza. The police came again for another statement after the video story went out in the Sunday Mirror.
Intense diplomatic interest in tapes, but not the police
13. I had these films but for some reason the British police did not want them. So I sat on them only sharing copies with diplomats of a number of embassies in London.
14. Another contact I made who was extremely helpful at the time was the Ambassador for the Yemen. He was interested in the Aden bombers and other British jihadis who had been sent by Abu Hamza to bomb and kidnap in his country.
http://www.al-bab.com/yemen/hamza/intro.htm
Yemen: The Islamic Army - "bomb plot" and kidnapping
15. After watching the videos whilst I was still stood in the ambassador’s office a formal complaint was made to the Foreign Office and Robin Cook , the Foreign Secretary. Cook never knew who was behind this complaint from the Yemen embassy. The videos showed Hamza with two of the Britons arrested for terrorist offences in the Yemen. Yet the British government demanded they be released due to Yemen's unfair legal system. The video showed them all talking about terrorism before they left for Yemen. Time and again I was appalled that the UK authorities just did not want act on terrorism being discussed and planned in the UK.
16. The Egyptian military attaché was after Abu Hamza and his followers. In one of the videos Hamza and his radical followers can be seen protesting outside the Egyptian embassy.
Yemen: The Islamic Army - "bomb plot" and kidnapping
17. Abu Hamza and the Supporters of Shariah. The USA, India, Russia, Yemen, Serbia, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Israel all took an interest and expressed real concern about Hamza and Supporters of Shariah.
THE ULTIMATE JIHAD CHALLENGE
18. Abu Hamza, Omar Bakri and Omar Brooks (aka Abu Izzadeen and Trevor Brooks) were all associated with a former Security Company called Sakina Security Services. This unusual organisation claimed to provide training improvised explosive devices and Jihad training. Their star product was a two week jihad training course in America. Web archive provides information on their website.
19. Meanwhile James Ujaama was due in court in Seattle. The FBI did not seem to have much of a case so my American friends started asking me questions about the American jihadi sat next to Abu Hamza in the videos. Could it be James Ujaama? From looking a file photographs of him I could not be sure. The only way to be certain was for the FBI in Seattle who had not been given access to the videos by the American
embassy in London to see for themselves.
20. The day before James Ujaama was due in court I up-loaded the videos onto the web for everyone and anyone interested to view. With-in two hours my friend Dr Jeremy Reynalds who worked on the sting confirmed that it was indeed James Ujaama. Here is a copy of the page. http://johnathangaltfilms.com/movie.html [Dead link.][Available on 4 July 2009: http://web.archive.org/web/20021119090722/http://johnathangaltfilms.com/movie.html
21. The story he wrote about the videos going on line was posted all over the web. The Seattle Times soon got hold of the story and put two and two together and come up with James Ujaama like Jeremy Reynalds had.
22. Only Mrs Galt, my webmaster based in America, Khalid in India and Johnathan and Jeremy Reynalds knew where to find the videos. The tip off to the newspapers and FBI came only after we all had downloaded each film onto our computers just in case the site went down. This did happen as we got too much traffic for the web server to handle.
23. This was the first time the FBI had seen the Ujaama video even after 9/11. This was one year after 9/11 and we have evidence that USA security agencies were still not sharing intelligence. I soon shipped off the tape to the Seattle Times for them to share with the FBI. The tape took two days to get there by UPS.
Ujaama changes plea and agrees to testify
24. Ujaama soon had a change of heart once he was shown the video in court. This was the start of Hamza's downfall. The FBI asked him to change his plea in return for a light sentence. Ujaama agreed only because he knew the video would convict him and he faced twenty years in jail. Part of his agreement with the FBI was that he had to now give evidence against Abu Hamza in any future trial and help FBI officers build a case. With-out the Ujaama video a case might never of been built against Abu Hamza But this was only one of six video and 20 audio tapes.
25. Another video tape was dated two days after the bombing of the American embassies in Tanzania and Kenya. Hamza was talking about going to jihad and was sat next to two of the Britons who would be arrested in Yemen 6 months later. They were caught trying to bomb British and American interests in Aden. One member of the group was Abu Hamza's own son, Mohammed Kamel Mostafa. Abu Hamza talks about kidnapping, bombing embassies and how much money the people at the meeting should leave their wives when they go abroad for jihad. This video directly linked Abu Hamza to the Yemen. It was bagged up with the others later by the police and shipped to the FBI in New York to build a case against Abu Hamza.
The press join in the campaign against Hamza
26. We now had new partners in the form of the press in the campaign to get rid of Hamza from the UK in 2000. They were doing a much better job than either the police or the intelligence services.
27. When I first came across Hamza and started complaining not many newspapers were interested but as the years went by the press got more and more interested and made Hamza one of the most hated people in the UK.
28. I heard some good reports via the Indian High commission from their counter parts in America about the Hamza case. The senior officer I knew at the Indian high commission was good friends with the American senior officer and was told there will be movement soon. I was asked if I could keep feeding the press with Hamza stories via my group of on-line spies. We used a freelance reporter who made quite a bit of money from our information to make sure the American embassy in London had all the tapes. I took a train to London and went in person to the American embassy to hand copies of the tapes to the secretary of the legal attaché.
Hamza’s arrest
29. In the end the news broke about Abu Hamza. He was arrested in London by the police on an American arrest warrant as a direct result of the tapes that I had supplied. The arrest warrant came from New York as it was the port of entry of Ujaama, another of Hamza's followers into America when they tried to set up a jihad training camp in Bly Oregon (see ultimate Jihad training above). My role in Hamza’s arrest was reported on CBS News on 16 August 2004. http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/08/16/eveningnews/main636344.shtml
30. Everyone was happy the British police were forced to act on Abu Hamza, but then came the interesting stuff. When the police raided Hamza's home with the American warrant they tripped over loads of boxes of videos and audio tapes just like the ones I handed to them 3 years before and like the ones the Americans were using in New York for the arrest warrant.1000's of tapes in total. It was only when they found the tapes that the Police and CPS acted and charged Hamza in the UK.
When all the commotion was going and there were calls for action to be taken against Hamza very few people aware that the Police had the evidence all the time but failed to investigate properly what they had and take action. Hamza is due in court next month to face the extradition charges to the USA. Sooner or later the truth about the Hamza tapes and the embarrassing fact that the Police had evidence on Hamza, all along but failed to act will come out.
31. The truth was the UK police and Crown Prosecution Service failed to act on Hamza even when they had been given the information in the form of video and audio tapes to convict him. Abu Hamza or his son in the end helped the FBI build a case against him by posting me the videos showing him together with James Ujaama. These same tapes have already helped in the conviction of James Ujaama, who will be a key
witness if Hamza is extradited to the USA and is put on trial.
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