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| By: Associated Press |
| Published: January 15, 2006 |
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A Muslim cleric accused in Britain of incitement to murder praised Adolf Hitler and called for Jews to be destroyed in a videotaped sermon shown at his trial Friday.
Egyptian-born Abu Hamza al-Masri faces life in prison if convicted of inciting murder and stirring racial hatred in speeches recorded on nine video and audio tapes made for supporters.
Al-Masri, 47, has pleaded not guilty to the charges.
The grainy, black-and-white footage was recorded in October 2000 at the Finsbury Park mosque, in north London, where the cleric was formerly head preacher, prosecutor David Perry said.
"The Jews will be destroyed, the state (of Israel) will be destroyed and some of the Jews will be running around hiding behind the trees," said al-Masri, speaking in Arabic, according to a translation of the recording read in court.
He said Muslims should ensure that Israel and the Palestinian territories becomes "the biggest Jewish graveyard in the world."
"We do not want the Jews to pull away from Palestine, but we want them to be buried there," al-Masri said. "The tunnels that they dug underneath the Al Aqsa mosque (in Jerusalem) will be filled with their skulls and their bodies."
Al-Masri said Hitler had been sent to Earth to persecute Jews and had targeted them for their "dealings and treachery."
He "killed them and punished them" and "they will be inflicted with that again," the cleric said.
The orator said Western politicians of the time, including then-U.S. President Bill Clinton and then-British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook, were the "slaves of the Jews."
"The Jews own them. They own everything they have and they own their fantasies as well," al-Masri said.
In another tape shown by prosecutors, al-Masri told followers they should steal to pay off debts, but must not do so while veiled or bearded, to avoid giving people a poor impression of Muslims.
"Whether it's drugs money or cheese money, you take it," he said.
Al-Masri - who says he lost an eye and both hands while fighting Soviet troops in Afghanistan - was head preacher at Finsbury Park mosque from the late 1990s until 2003, when he was ousted by the institution's new leaders.
The north London center has been linked to several terrorist suspects, including alleged Sept. 11 plotter Zacarias Moussaoui and "shoe bomber" Richard Reid.
British authorities have charged al-Masri, whose real name is Mustafa Kamel Mustafa, with multiple counts of inciting the killing of Jews and other non-Muslims, using threatening or abusive language designed to stir racial hatred and possessing the terrorism-related document.
Prosecutors also allege al-Masri possessed a 10-volume terrorism manual that advised attacking targets such as Big Ben, the Statue of Liberty and the Eiffel Tower.
He is wanted in the United States on an 11-count indictment from 2004 that charges him with conspiring to provide material support to the al-Qaida terror network by establishing a training camp in Oregon, conspiring to take hostages in Yemen and facilitating training in Afghanistan.
Under British law, al-Masri must be tried and serve any sentence he receives in Britain before he can be extradited to the United States to face charges there. |
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