|
Cleric linked to 9-11 plotter sentenced
(AP)
Updated: 2006-02-08 09:20
A radical Muslim cleric linked to Sept. 11 plotter Zacarias Moussaoui was
sentenced to seven years in prison Tuesday for inciting followers to kill
non-Muslims when he led a London mosque.
Abu Hamza al-Masri also faces terrorism charges in the United States, and a
Justice Department spokesman said the U.S. "stands ready to resume extradition
proceedings" when the British case is completed.
In Tuesday's sentencing, Judge Anthony Hughes told al-Masri that his sermons
at the Finsbury Park mosque, attended by Moussaoui and shoe-bomber Richard Reid,
had endangered people around the world.
"You helped to create an atmosphere in which to kill has become regarded by
some as not only a legitimate course but as a moral and religious duty in
pursuit of perceived justice," the judge said.
Moussaoui pleaded guilty last year to plotting with al-Qaida to fly planes
into U.S. buildings and faces trial in the U.S. on terrorism conspiracy charges.
Reid was convicted of attempting to blow up an American Airlines flight in 2001
with a shoe bomb.
This is an artist impression of radical Muslim
cleric Abu Hamza, left, being addressed by Judge Anthony Hughes,right, in
the dock at the Old Bailey, London, Tuesday, Feb. 7, 2006.
[AP] | The one-eyed, hook-handed al-Masri sat
impassively in the wood-paneled dock as the jury foreman read out guilty
verdicts on 11 of 15 counts, including incitement to murder, fomenting racial
hatred, possessing a terrorist document and possessing abusive recordings. He
had faced a maximum of life in prison.
Hughes sentenced al-Masri to seven years on the most serious charges of
soliciting murder and allowed him to serve his sentences on the other charges
concurrently.
"I am quite satisfied that you are and were a person whose views created a
real danger to the lives of innocent people in different parts of the world," he
said.
Defense attorneys said al-Masri planned to appeal. Defense lawyer Muddassar
Arani said al-Masri believed he was "a prisoner of faith, and this is a slow
martyrdom for him."
A supporter in the public gallery shouted "God bless you Sheik Hamza" as the
cleric was led from the courtroom. Others shouted to him in Arabic.
Authorities in Britain and the United States accuse al-Masri of being at the
center of a web of terrorist activity from the 1990s until police raided the
Finsbury Park mosque in 2003.
He has been charged in the United States on an 11-count indictment with
trying to establish a terrorist training camp in Oregon, conspiring to take
hostages in Yemen and facilitating terror training in Afghanistan.
|
