Trial for Radical Cleric Opens in U

Trial for Radical Cleric Opens in U.K.

By JILL LAWLESS
The Associated Press
Tuesday, July 5, 2005; 6:45 PM

LONDON -- Neatly shorn and bespectacled, Britain's best-known Islamic radical appeared in court Tuesday, charged with encouraging the murder of Jews and other non-Muslims.

The fiery cleric Abu Hamza al-Masri sat uncharacteristically silent in the dock at the Old Bailey as lawyers outlined legal arguments ahead of his jury trial.

Tuesday had been set for the trial's beginning, but the first session was taken up with legal arguments, which are expected to continue all week. Court orders forbid any reporting of the arguments, which take place without a jury present.

Wearing a blue smock with hair gray hair and beard trimmed, al-Masri was surrounded by four guards in the dock of the wood-panelled courtroom.

He faces trial on 15 counts, including nine of soliciting the murder of others, "namely a person or persons who did not believe in the Islamic faith." Three of the charges add: "in particular Jewish people."

He also faces four counts of using threatening or abusive language designed to stir racial hatred, one count of possessing threatening or abusive recordings and one count of possessing a document likely to be useful in terrorism _ the "Encyclopedia of the Afghani Jihad."

Al-Masri pleaded innocent to all charges at a hearing in January.

"From my point of view and Abu Hamza's point of view, we don't see Muslims as terrorists, we see the Western governments as the real terrorists," al-Masri's spokesman, Abu Abdullah, said in a telephone interview.

British prosecutors charged al-Masri on Oct. 19, pre-empting a U.S. bid to extradite him on terrorism-related charges. His extradition hearing had been due to start the same day.

Under British law the domestic charges, which carry a maximum sentence of life in prison, take precedence over the extradition case. The United States plans to resume extradition proceedings once he is convicted or cleared of the British charges.

Al-Masri, 47, is former head preacher at London's Finsbury Park mosque, which has been linked to terrorist suspects including alleged Sept. 11, 2001, plotter Zacarias Moussaoui and "shoe bomber" Richard Reid.

The Egyptian-born cleric _ who has one eye and hooks for hands, which he says were lost fighting Soviet troops in Afghanistan in the 1980s _ has called the Sept. 11 attacks a Jewish plot and the invasion of Iraq a war on Islam. He denies involvement in violence and says he is only a spokesman for political causes.

Al-Masri is fighting the government's 2003 decision to strip him of his British citizenship. He also is wanted in Yemen on charges of hostage-taking and conspiracy in connection with a December 1998 incident that left four tourists dead.

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Associated Press Writer Thomas Wagner in London contributed to this report.