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UK cleric gets seven-year sentence

A police officer looks over at a lone Muslim protester outside Central Criminal Court in London on Tuesday. PHOTO: AFP

A British judge has sentenced radical Muslim cleric Abu Hamza al-Masri to seven years in prison for promoting the slaying of non-Muslims as a "religious duty" when he led a London mosque seen as the spiritual haven for two al-Qaeda-linked terrorists.

Judge Anthony Hughes told the former imam of the Finsbury Park mosque on Tuesday that his speeches had endangered people around the world. The mosque -- described by the head of London's Metropolitan Police anti-terrorism unit Peter Clarke as a "honeypot for extremists" -- was attended by both Sept. 11 plotter Zacarias Moussaoui and "shoe bomber" Richard Reid.

Moussaoui pleaded guilty last year to plotting with al-Qaeda to fly planes into US buildings, he faces trial in the US on terrorism conspiracy charges. Reid was convicted of attempting to blow up an American Airlines flight in 2001 with a shoe bomb.

"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 told al-Masri.

The one-eyed, hook-handed preacher sat impassively in the wood-paneled dock as the foreman of the jury read out guilty verdicts on 11 out 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.

The cleric's attorneys said he 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 out of the courtroom. Others shouted to him in Arabic.

Authorities in Britain and the US claim al-Masri was 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 US 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.

Under British law, the domestic charges took precedence over the extradition case, but al-Masri could now be sent to the US for prosecution there if US authorities request it.

In Washington, US Justice Department spokesman Bryan Sierra said the US "stands ready to resume the extradition proceedings against Abu Hamza when British law allows."

In his trial at London's Central Criminal Court, al-Masri, whose real name is Mustafa Kamel Mustafa, faced charges of soliciting the murder of others, "namely a person or persons who did not believe in the Islamic faith; using threatening or abusive language designed to stir racial hatred; possessing threatening or abusive recordings; and possessing a document likely to be useful in terrorism -- the Encyclopedia of the Afghani Jihad."

The cleric, who claims to have lost his eye and both hands in Afghanistan during the Soviet occupation, became a high-profile radical and a hate figure for British tabloids, who called him "Hooky" and "Dr. Hook."

After he was expelled from the mosque by administrators in 2003, he led Friday prayers on the street outside until his 2004 arrest on a US extradition warrant. He has been detained in the high-security Belmarsh prison ever since.

During the trial, al-Masri took the stand and denied any involvement in violence.
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