By Karima Rhanem | Morocco TIMES 2/23/2005 | 3:50 pm
The general prosecutor in Rabat decided, on Monday, to continue a complementary probe into the case of the five Moroccans formerly detained in Guantanamo. The hearing, which was closed to public, was postponed to March 7, said defence lawyer Abdelfattah Zahrach.
Zahrach told Morocco Times that the decision to postpone the trial was to enable the organization of a face-to-face meeting between the five defendants and Noureddine Nifiaâ, who is serving a 20 year prison sentence for belonging to the Moroccan Islamic Combatant Group.
In December 2004, the court had granted bail to three of the five former Guantanamo detainees who are facing the same charges: Abdallah Tabarak, 49, suspected of serving as a bodyguard for Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in Sudan and Afghanistan; Mohamed Ouzar; and Redouane Chekkouri.
Two others, Mohamed Mazouz, 32, and Brahim Benchekroun, 26, were denied bail last month, pending trial on charges of criminal association, and for failing to report crimes that could have undermined the security of the State.
Arrested in Pakistan and Afghanistan in late 2001, all five were accused of taking part in training courses on how to handle firearms and make explosives.
The defendants are being tried on different charges, particularly for “belonging to a criminal group, non-denunciation of a crime harming State security, assistance to a criminal group by transferring money to Moroccans with the aim of creating a gang that threatens Morocco's interests and participation in the forging of a passport.”
At last fortnight's hearing, the defendants denied belonging to the Moroccan Islamic Combatant Group” and any link with Bin Laden. They stressed that they had no military training in camps in Afghanistan, denying knowledge of the prisoner Noureddine Nifiaâ or any members of Al Qaeda. The five men also denied prior knowledge of any terrorist project targeting Morocco.
In turn, the court rejected the defence's claim that the court of appeal was incompetent to deal with this issue. The defence also argued that the acts for which the five defendants were apprehended by American authorities took place outside Morocco.
Abdelfattah Zahrach, both as a lawyer and a human right activist, is very determined to win the trial. He considers the case a human right's issue, criticizing the US authorities' treatment of the five defendants, who were transferred to Guantanamo after their arrest in Afghanistan.
“The United States is violating international laws and conventions. The Moroccan court, instead of suing the US for its human rights violations, is suing those Moroccans, who were held without due process and in total violation of the norms and standards of international humanitarian and human rights law," said Zahrach.
The five men claim they were stripped naked and handcuffed before having dogs set on them. Abdallah Tabarak, 49, suspected of serving as a bodyguard for al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in Sudan and Afghanistan, denied any link to Al Qaida or Bin Laden. Tabarak, who refused to talk to the media, told Morocco Times that he still suffers from the consequences of the torture he underwent at Guantanano.
“I am now concerned about my health. I can't see very well, because I spent more than eight months in a tiny, dark, and single cell. I also have a constant backache due to the series of beating by American soldiers. I can not sleep now; I still have nightmares,” he said.
Tabarak was astonished at his accusation of creating a criminal gang with the other defendants, claiming he hadn't met them until they were transferred to Morocco.
“Some biased media accused me of being Bin Laden's bodyguard, but this is not true,” Tabarak added.
“Do you think that if I was Bin Laden's bodyguard, the US would have freed me? I doubt it,” he added.
Tabarak's defence lawyer, Zahrach, also criticized the way the five men were transferred by American authorities, stripping them of their possessions and official documents.
The defence also protested against the court's refusal to ask questions on their detention conditions in Guantanamo. Each time the defendants brought up instances of torture during their two-year detention at Guantanamo, they were silenced by the Moroccan judge.
Defence lawyer Mohammed Hilal also criticized the trial, stressing that the court "had deprived the five Moroccan ex-Guantanamo detainees of the opportunity to present their case effectively before the court.”
“Those transferred from Guantanamo prison to Morocco did not commit any criminal act in their homeland. In this case, it is not within the Moroccan court's authority to try these defendants. The latter were not handed over within the framework of an extradition treaty between Morocco and USA,” said the lawyer.
Hilal raised an important point concerning the basis of the trial. “The defendants”, he claimed, “are not being sued on the basis of the Terrorism Law, enacted in the aftermath of Casablanca May 16 attacks. However, they are tried on the basis of the Penal Code,” said Hilal.
“The defendants can't be sued on the basis of either the Penal Code or the terrorism law, simply because they were arrested outside Morocco long before May 16. Besides, investigations have proved that they have no criminal record and have committed no crime in Morocco. We just do not understand why and on what basis the court is suing them,” he stressed.
Both lawyers asked that every defendant be tried separately. They didn't have prior knowledge of one another, since they only met when they were transferred to Morocco in a US military jet. Even at Guantanamo prison, they were not allowed to have group meetings because everyone was detained in a single cell.
The lawyers also asked for the Moroccan Minister of Justice and the US Ambassador to Morocco to be summoned to explain the hand-over circumstances of the five Moroccans, and the enigma that surrounds their case.
The lawyers also required to see and include the legal procedures on which the National police based their investigations. These documents were not included in the court's file related to this case.
Concerning the current complementary probe, the lawyers were surprised that the General prosecutor had not requested this until after the beginning of the trial, not taking into consideration the results of the police investigation and the judge's preliminary inquiry.
When asked about whether they were used by the CIA, Hilal told Morocco Times that “the defendants, besides their abuse in Guantanamo, were approached by the intelligence agency, who tried to used them as their agents either through political refuge in the US or in any other country of their choice. However, their plans failed because the Moroccans were proud of their nationality and their religion, and refused to cooperate with US intelligence. That's why they were transferred back to Morocco,” said Hilal.
Both Hilal and Zahrach are confident that the five Moroccans will be soon freed, because for them there is no need to try them since there is no case and no crime. Although the charges are relatively minor, the trial is more high-profile than most of 1,000 terror cases tried in Morocco since the May 16 Casablanca bombings that killed more than 42 people.
Analysts said that after the arrest of Moroccans in connection with the March 11 Madrid attacks and the murder of Dutch film-maker Theo van Gogh in November 2004 by a radical Moroccan, Morocco is trying to show that terrorism is not the outcome of the Moroccan society, and that these Moroccans are being recruited by international terrorist gangs.
Karimarhanem's blog
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The blog contains most of my past articles at Morocco Times. It also includes some interesting subjects in different fields
By Karima Rhanem | Morocco TIMES 2/22/2006 | 1:19 pm
The Moroccan judicial police has ended its probe into the case of the three former Guantanamo detainees, who were transferred back to Morocco, just after the visit of the US FBI head to the Maghreb region, reported the Moroccan daily, al-Alam.
The United States handed over to Morocco, on Feb. 8, three suspected Islamic militants held at its Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba.
The three Moroccan men, Najib Lahssini, Mohamed Souleimani Laalami and Mohamed Ouali, were being detained in Casablanca for further questioning by an investigating judge, the official news agency MAP reported.
The extradition was announced two days after US Federal Bureau of Investigation head Robert Mueller held talks with King Mohammed on security cooperation between Rabat and Washington.
Mueller, who toured the North African region to cement the US anti-terror drive, also met Morocco's top security chiefs.
After the pre-Sentence Investigation, the investigating judge is expected to decide soon on whether to arrest them, released them under the supervision of the criminal justice, or close the case.
The United States sent five Moroccan detainees home from Guantanamo in 2004, but the five have since been in and out of detention and questioning by police over their suspected links with radical Islamist cells.
Mohamed Mazouz and Brahim Benchekroun, two of the five former detainees were arrested in connection with a terrorist structure in Morocco, which included 17 people, related to al Qaeda network and accused of recruiting Mujahideen to go to Iraq.
The three others were granted bail in December 2004: Abdallah Tabarak, 49, suspected of serving as a bodyguard for Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in Sudan and Afghanistan; Mohamed Ouzar; and Redouane Chekkouri.
Local lawyers and human rights groups say more than 20 Moroccans are still held in Guanatanamo.
The US military said earlier it extradited 11 Guantanamo detainees; three to Morocco, one to Uganda and seven to Afghanistan.
UN urges Guantanamo close down
A few days ago, a group of top UN human rights experts urged the United States to close its Guantanamo Bay detention centre "without further delay" because it violates key fundamentals of international law including the prohibition of torture.
In a 40-page report, five UN special envoys said the United States was violating a host of human rights, including a ban on torture, arbitrary detention and the right to a fair trial.
The report disputes the US definition of some 500 detainees at the naval base on Cuba as "enemy combatants" and argues that President Bush's War on Terror has no basis in international law.
However, Washington, which denies that Guantanamo inmates are mistreated or that international laws are being broken, accused the UN investigators of acting like prosecution lawyers.
The United States denies that most of the rights, laid down in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, to which Washington is a signatory, apply to Guantanamo Bay.
The New York Times reported on Wednesday that the military commander responsible for the American detention center at Guantanamo Bay, confirmed Tuesday that officials there last month turned to more aggressive methods to deter prisoners who were carrying out long-term hunger strikes to protest their incarceration.
The commander, Gen. Bantz J. Craddock, head of the US Southern Command, said soldiers at Guantánamo began strapping some of the detainees into "restraint chairs" to force-feed them and isolate them from one another after finding that some were deliberately vomiting or siphoning out the liquid they had been fed.
Military officials have also said the tough measures were necessary to keep detainees from dying. But while many of the strikers lost between 15 and 20 % of their normal body weight, only a few were thought to be in immediate medical danger.
The detainees' lawyers and several human rights groups have assailed the new methods used against the hunger strikers as inhumane, and as unjustified by the reported medical condition of the prisoners.
Despite mounting pressure from the international community, US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld blasted UN Secretary General Kofi Annan as "just flat wrong" in calling for the closure of the military-run detention center at Guantanamo Bay.
"We shouldn't close Guantanamo," he said. "We have several hundreds of terrorists, bad people, people if they went back out on the field would try to kill Americans."
The United States holds at the base in Guantanamo about 500 people on suspicion of links to al Qaeda or Afghanistan's ousted Taliban government . It has filed charges against 10 of the detainees.
US faces allegations of clandestine prisons in Europe and elsewhere
The United States is currently facing the allegations, surfaced last November, that US agents interrogated key al-Qaeda suspects at clandestine prisons in Eastern Europe and transported some suspects to other countries via Europe.
The Council of Europe, which is investigating these allegations, released a report which stated that more than 100 terror suspects may have been transferred to countries where they faced torture or ill treatment in recent years.
The New York-based Human Rights Watch. (HRW) identified Romania and Poland as possible sites of secret US-run detention facilities. Both countries have denied involvement. Swiss Senator Dick Marty said there was no formal evidence so far of the existence of clandestine detention centers in Romania or Poland as alleged by HRW.
Recently, the UK-based paper, The Sunday Times, and the Belgian daily, Le Soir, has reported on a US would-be plan to build a secret prison in Morocco on behalf of the American intelligence Agency (CIA), but Morocco categorically denied the stories run by the two papers.
The Sunday Times reported that the US is helping Morocco to build a new interrogation and detention facility for al-Qaeda suspects near its capital, Rabat, quoting western intelligence sources. It also reported that the building was under way at Ain Aouda, above a wooded gorge south of Rabat's diplomatic district.
Meanwhile, the Belgian daily, Le Soir, claims that the military base of Ben Guerir, about 60 km north of Marrakech (southern Morocco), will also be a potential secret detention devoted to terrorists linked to al-Qaeda.
“The stories, published by the British and Belgian papers respectively on February 12 and 13, are "pure allegations, devoid of any basis," said a release of the Moroccan Ministry of Interior.
Addressing the message to the national and international public opinion, the ministry's release recalled that Morocco, in its war against terrorism, respects the state of law and the rights and civil liberties of individuals and groups, in conformity with the international human rights code.
The release stressed that the Moroccan authorities, which are profoundly shocked and outraged at these allegations, reserve the right to undertake all the necessary measures to restore the complete truth."
The publication of the said allegations coincided with the visits of US FBI director, Robert Mueller, and the Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, to Morocco, who came to discuss security cooperation in the fight against terrorism.
The Moroccan judicial police has ended its probe into the case of the three former Guantanamo detainees, who were transferred back to Morocco, just after the visit of the US FBI head to the Maghreb region, reported the Moroccan daily, al-Alam.
The United States handed over to Morocco, on Feb. 8, three suspected Islamic militants held at its Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba.
The three Moroccan men, Najib Lahssini, Mohamed Souleimani Laalami and Mohamed Ouali, were being detained in Casablanca for further questioning by an investigating judge, the official news agency MAP reported.
The extradition was announced two days after US Federal Bureau of Investigation head Robert Mueller held talks with King Mohammed on security cooperation between Rabat and Washington.
Mueller, who toured the North African region to cement the US anti-terror drive, also met Morocco's top security chiefs.
After the pre-Sentence Investigation, the investigating judge is expected to decide soon on whether to arrest them, released them under the supervision of the criminal justice, or close the case.
The United States sent five Moroccan detainees home from Guantanamo in 2004, but the five have since been in and out of detention and questioning by police over their suspected links with radical Islamist cells.
Mohamed Mazouz and Brahim Benchekroun, two of the five former detainees were arrested in connection with a terrorist structure in Morocco, which included 17 people, related to al Qaeda network and accused of recruiting Mujahideen to go to Iraq.
The three others were granted bail in December 2004: Abdallah Tabarak, 49, suspected of serving as a bodyguard for Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in Sudan and Afghanistan; Mohamed Ouzar; and Redouane Chekkouri.
Local lawyers and human rights groups say more than 20 Moroccans are still held in Guanatanamo.
The US military said earlier it extradited 11 Guantanamo detainees; three to Morocco, one to Uganda and seven to Afghanistan.
UN urges Guantanamo close down
A few days ago, a group of top UN human rights experts urged the United States to close its Guantanamo Bay detention centre "without further delay" because it violates key fundamentals of international law including the prohibition of torture.
In a 40-page report, five UN special envoys said the United States was violating a host of human rights, including a ban on torture, arbitrary detention and the right to a fair trial.
The report disputes the US definition of some 500 detainees at the naval base on Cuba as "enemy combatants" and argues that President Bush's War on Terror has no basis in international law.
However, Washington, which denies that Guantanamo inmates are mistreated or that international laws are being broken, accused the UN investigators of acting like prosecution lawyers.
The United States denies that most of the rights, laid down in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, to which Washington is a signatory, apply to Guantanamo Bay.
The New York Times reported on Wednesday that the military commander responsible for the American detention center at Guantanamo Bay, confirmed Tuesday that officials there last month turned to more aggressive methods to deter prisoners who were carrying out long-term hunger strikes to protest their incarceration.
The commander, Gen. Bantz J. Craddock, head of the US Southern Command, said soldiers at Guantánamo began strapping some of the detainees into "restraint chairs" to force-feed them and isolate them from one another after finding that some were deliberately vomiting or siphoning out the liquid they had been fed.
Military officials have also said the tough measures were necessary to keep detainees from dying. But while many of the strikers lost between 15 and 20 % of their normal body weight, only a few were thought to be in immediate medical danger.
The detainees' lawyers and several human rights groups have assailed the new methods used against the hunger strikers as inhumane, and as unjustified by the reported medical condition of the prisoners.
Despite mounting pressure from the international community, US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld blasted UN Secretary General Kofi Annan as "just flat wrong" in calling for the closure of the military-run detention center at Guantanamo Bay.
"We shouldn't close Guantanamo," he said. "We have several hundreds of terrorists, bad people, people if they went back out on the field would try to kill Americans."
The United States holds at the base in Guantanamo about 500 people on suspicion of links to al Qaeda or Afghanistan's ousted Taliban government . It has filed charges against 10 of the detainees.
US faces allegations of clandestine prisons in Europe and elsewhere
The United States is currently facing the allegations, surfaced last November, that US agents interrogated key al-Qaeda suspects at clandestine prisons in Eastern Europe and transported some suspects to other countries via Europe.
The Council of Europe, which is investigating these allegations, released a report which stated that more than 100 terror suspects may have been transferred to countries where they faced torture or ill treatment in recent years.
The New York-based Human Rights Watch. (HRW) identified Romania and Poland as possible sites of secret US-run detention facilities. Both countries have denied involvement. Swiss Senator Dick Marty said there was no formal evidence so far of the existence of clandestine detention centers in Romania or Poland as alleged by HRW.
Recently, the UK-based paper, The Sunday Times, and the Belgian daily, Le Soir, has reported on a US would-be plan to build a secret prison in Morocco on behalf of the American intelligence Agency (CIA), but Morocco categorically denied the stories run by the two papers.
The Sunday Times reported that the US is helping Morocco to build a new interrogation and detention facility for al-Qaeda suspects near its capital, Rabat, quoting western intelligence sources. It also reported that the building was under way at Ain Aouda, above a wooded gorge south of Rabat's diplomatic district.
Meanwhile, the Belgian daily, Le Soir, claims that the military base of Ben Guerir, about 60 km north of Marrakech (southern Morocco), will also be a potential secret detention devoted to terrorists linked to al-Qaeda.
“The stories, published by the British and Belgian papers respectively on February 12 and 13, are "pure allegations, devoid of any basis," said a release of the Moroccan Ministry of Interior.
Addressing the message to the national and international public opinion, the ministry's release recalled that Morocco, in its war against terrorism, respects the state of law and the rights and civil liberties of individuals and groups, in conformity with the international human rights code.
The release stressed that the Moroccan authorities, which are profoundly shocked and outraged at these allegations, reserve the right to undertake all the necessary measures to restore the complete truth."
The publication of the said allegations coincided with the visits of US FBI director, Robert Mueller, and the Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, to Morocco, who came to discuss security cooperation in the fight against terrorism.
Blair says deportation of terror suspects won't affect civil liberties
By Karima Rhanem | Morocco TIMES 9/18/2005 | 1:06 pm
British civil rights groups and legal experts said on Friday that Britain's planned anti-terror laws are draconian compared with other countries. However, Prime Minister Tony Blair has defended his government's attempts to deport terror suspects to countries with poor human rights records and denied that Britain's proposed anti-terror legislation would undermine civil liberties.
In an interview with the BBC before leaving New York for London on Thursday, Tony Blair said that other states in Europe were taking similar steps to crackdown on extremists. Blair, who won global support for the need to ban the incitement of terrorism at the UN summit in New York, also played down the failure of the UN to agree on a common definition of terrorism.
"Virtually every country in Europe following terrorist acts, has been toughening its legislation,” Blair said.
"And the fact that someone who comes into our country, and maybe seeks refuge here, the fact that we say if, when you are here, you want to stay here, play by the rules, play fair, don't start inciting people to go and kill other innocent people in Britain," he added.
Blair justified his government draconian anti-terror laws by explaining that "when people say this is an abrogation of our traditional civil liberties, I think it is possible to exaggerate that."
In August, Prime Minister Tony Blair's government announced plans to deport hardline Islamists who incite or glorify militant attacks. Britain has signed agreements with some countries, including Jordan, to return them.
The British government unveiled other plans on Sept. 15 to extend the time police can hold terrorism suspects without charge to three months from two weeks as part of a package of measures to crack down on extremists.
Police have long argued they need more than 14 days to cope with the volume of cases, the need to trawl through electronic evidence and to work with overseas intelligence agencies.
However, civil rights campaigners do not seem convinced nor satisfied with the new proposals. They say three months would be draconian compared to other countries and could backfire.
"These measures, coupled with faulty British intelligence, will increase the witchhunt against Muslims," said Massoud Shadjareh, chairman of the Islamic Human Rights Commission (IHRC).
He added that the proposals "targeted the concept of Islam". The human rights organisation also condemned plans to deport foreign Muslims to countries known for human rights abuses.
As the British government also plans to outlaw the indirect incitement of terrorism and to ban organisations which glorify terrorism, critics say such measures could pose definition problems.
Nearly 40 organisations signed the IHRC statement, which condemned the government's proposed banning of pressure group Hizb al-Tahrir - one of the signatories to the six-point statement.
New arrests to protect Homeland Security
Earlier on Thursday, the British Immigration Service detained seven Algerians in raids in London and Manchester, in accordance with the Home Secretary's powers to deport the individuals whose presence in the UK is not conducive to the public good for reasons of national security.
The Immigration Act 1971 gives powers to deport individuals and to detain them pending deportation. The seven foreign nationals will be held in secure prison service accommodation and their names will not be disclosed.
Official sources said the Algerians were all former defendants accused of involvement in a 2002 plot to manufacture the deadly ricin poison.
Anti-terror proposals and arrests followed the July 7 suicide bombings in London which killed 52 commuters and wounded 700. Britain has since detained 10 foreigners for deportation on the grounds they are threats to security and barred a Muslim cleric. These include British cleric of Jordanian descent, Abu Qatada, previously described by Spanish officials as Osama Ben Laden's “spiritual ambassador in Europe.”
Like Abu Qatada, some of the foreigners detained on Thursday had spent up to three years in jail without trial under sweeping anti-terror legislation until their release in March after Britain's highest court ruled it unlawful. Since then, they have been supervised under so-called control orders, such as curfew or house arrest, and banned from using the telephone or Internet.
Londonstan, a haven for radicals
London has long been a centre for 'Islamist politics'. A framework of lenient asylum laws has allowed the development of the largest and most overt concentration of Islamist political activists since Taliban-ruled Afghanistan. The city's tolerance of exiled dissidents and terrorist sympathizers has attracted a polyglot group of intellectuals, preachers, financiers, arms traders, technology specialists, and forgers.
Radical Islamic exiles value London as a base in part because according to them "the legal system is quite stable and it cannot be influenced by politicians or by public opinion”.
Britain's reputation for providing a safe haven for Islamist terrorists made al-Qaida leader, Ousama Ben Laden, establish his "media office" in London in 1994 under the control of his associate Khalid al Fawwaz.
That office operated freely until 1998 when Fawwaz and two Egyptians who were running it were arrested under US extradition warrants in connection with the bombing of the US embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam. All three are staging lengthy and legally-aided battles against extradition. British intelligence officials concede that about 1,000 people have been recruited in Britain over recent years to fight for the Taliban in Afghanistan. Some of those graduated to al-Qaida training camps.
Other leading British Islamist extremists included Sheikh Abu Hamza al Masri and Sheikh Omar Bakri Mohammed.
Bakri is the leader of al-Muhajiroun, a highly vocal group which apes fringe Left-wing groups in trying to recruit impressionable young members at universities and mosques.
Abu Hamza al Masri, another cleric, received asylum in Britain from Egypt in the late '70s and British citizenship in 1981. He volunteered to fight in Afghanistan in the 1990s, then returned to Britain to preach justifications for violence against those he perceived to be Islam's enemies.
Throughout, Masri met periodically with Britain's intelligence services and anti-terrorism police, who were investigating his activities. The government moved to strip him of citizenship, but only in late 2004 did the Crown Prosecution Service conclude it had enough evidence to bring criminal charges, even though some of the speeches it relied on had taken place years before.
Others included the famous cleric Abu Qatada, who is said to be Ben Laden's “spiritual ambassador in Europe”. He is among the 10 foreign nationals Britain has decided to deport to their countries of origin.
Yasser Tawfiq Sirri, who ran a group called the Islamic Observation Center, was also arrested after 2001. He was mostly known for press releases critical of the Egyptian government.
It wasn't that big surprise that British nationals implemented the 7/7 blasts on London underground system and a double-decker bus. In 2001, Richard Reid, a British convert to Islam, tried to blow up an American Airlines flight with shoes packed with explosives. In 2003, two British Muslims blew themselves up in a Tel Aviv, Israel, bar, killing three people. Meanwhile, British-born "mujahedeen" were found fighting for the Taliban in Afghanistan.
A recent report by MI-5, a British domestic intelligence agency, warned that some British Muslim men were travelling to Iraq to fight against the US-led forces there, and may be returning home with radical ideas.
British Islamists criticize Blair's anti-terror plan
Several Islamists in Britain said that anti-terrorism measures have done little to ensure Britain is safe and secure from terrorist attack, but much to infringe the civil liberties of those living in the UK.
In an interview with the Arab weekly magazine Al Watane Al Arabi, Yasser Tawfiq al- Sirri, head of the Islamic Observation Centre in London, said that Blair's proposals follow Bush's path. He added that “Blair wants to turn Britain into a human rights cemetery.”
He said that the British government cannot deport Abu Qatada and others, because the decision was not approved by the parliament and remains just a draft.
The head of a London-based Islamic Centre has been charged with complicity in the suicide bombing that killed Afghan opposition leader Ahmed Shah Massood. Al-Sirri, 38, was detained on 23 October 2001, under Britain's new Terrorism Act.
Al-Sirri's Centre has for years served as a conduit for the messages of Ousama Ben Laden and his al-Qaida network. Besides raising money for Islamist causes, the centre publishes communiqués and articles by Islamist ideologues. Since the start of the US-led war on Afghanistan, al-Sirri's Islamic Observation Centre has also been issuing regular reports on the Jihad in Afghanistan.
On the other hand, the Egyptian Islamic scholar Zaki Badawi, disagree with al-Sirri's ideologies and backed Blair's proposals stating they are as necessary measures for the country's protection. Badawi also urged Britain to have direct dialogue with extremists.
“We do not fight their bodies, we fight their thoughts. If they are expelled, they are going to spread their radical thoughts elsewhere as their followers will see them as victims. Victimization is often their tool to have an impact on the public.”
Badawi was appointed director of the Islamic Cultural Centre (ICC) and Chief Imam of London Central Mosque in Regents Park in 1978. He served in these capacities until the end of 1981. During his time at the ICC, Badawi was instrumental in establishing the Sharia (Islamic Law) Council as a facility to reconcile conflicts between Islamic law and the British civil code. The Sharia Council now operates under the auspices of the Imams and Mosques Council. Badawi was elected chairman of the Imams and Mosques Council by the National Conference of Imams and Mosque Officials of the UK in 1984. He still holds this position.
Badawi has recently been criticized by extremists for having allowed women to take off their veil. He argued that women should be allowed to take off the Hijab, if wearing it threatens their lives.”
Badawi said that those, who think that Islam is reflected in wearing the Hijab, are narrow-minded. “They misuse the freedom offered by Britain to its citizens for a 'fake cause,” he stressed.
“People like Yasser al-Serri have little knowledge of religion, that's why they incite violence in Britain, a country which gave them shelter and refuge,” said Badawi.
When asked whether the legislators would approve Blair's 12-point plan, Badawi said “I think they will agree, because People in Britain are still scared to take the underground. The bombing have generated a great level of fear among Britons, that's why they insist that the government should take severe measures against those people, including Omar Bakri who is banned from returning back to Britain.”
Omar Bakri, a Syrian-born radical Islamist, is the founder of the London branch of Hizb al- Tahrir (the Islamic Liberation Party), and the organisation “Jama'at Al-Muhajirun”. He presents himself as the spokesperson of Ousama Ben Laden's International Islamic Front for Jihad Against Jews and Crusaders.
He was reported to have left the UK after rumours that the British Government was planning to investigate him (as well as other clerics) under little-used treason laws.
Mohammed Al-Massaari, another radical to be deported from Britain, told Al Watane Al Arabi in August that Blair is a war criminal who wants to hide his crimes by pointing fingers at others.
Al-Massaari thinks that even if the parliament approved Blair's proposals, the Prime Minister will not succeed in expelling radicals out of Britain. The radical Islamist argued that Londonstan will not collapse despite draconian anti-terror measures.
Today, Britain is accused by Ben Laden's followers as backing the Jews and Bush in their war against Islam, while the Jews accuse the UK of harbouring preachers of hate. Does this mean the end of Londonstan? Does this mean a suicide of civil liberties? Britain is in a real dilemma, but the country's Homeland Security remains the government's top priority.
By Karima Rhanem | Morocco TIMES 9/18/2005 | 1:06 pm
British civil rights groups and legal experts said on Friday that Britain's planned anti-terror laws are draconian compared with other countries. However, Prime Minister Tony Blair has defended his government's attempts to deport terror suspects to countries with poor human rights records and denied that Britain's proposed anti-terror legislation would undermine civil liberties.
In an interview with the BBC before leaving New York for London on Thursday, Tony Blair said that other states in Europe were taking similar steps to crackdown on extremists. Blair, who won global support for the need to ban the incitement of terrorism at the UN summit in New York, also played down the failure of the UN to agree on a common definition of terrorism.
"Virtually every country in Europe following terrorist acts, has been toughening its legislation,” Blair said.
"And the fact that someone who comes into our country, and maybe seeks refuge here, the fact that we say if, when you are here, you want to stay here, play by the rules, play fair, don't start inciting people to go and kill other innocent people in Britain," he added.
Blair justified his government draconian anti-terror laws by explaining that "when people say this is an abrogation of our traditional civil liberties, I think it is possible to exaggerate that."
In August, Prime Minister Tony Blair's government announced plans to deport hardline Islamists who incite or glorify militant attacks. Britain has signed agreements with some countries, including Jordan, to return them.
The British government unveiled other plans on Sept. 15 to extend the time police can hold terrorism suspects without charge to three months from two weeks as part of a package of measures to crack down on extremists.
Police have long argued they need more than 14 days to cope with the volume of cases, the need to trawl through electronic evidence and to work with overseas intelligence agencies.
However, civil rights campaigners do not seem convinced nor satisfied with the new proposals. They say three months would be draconian compared to other countries and could backfire.
"These measures, coupled with faulty British intelligence, will increase the witchhunt against Muslims," said Massoud Shadjareh, chairman of the Islamic Human Rights Commission (IHRC).
He added that the proposals "targeted the concept of Islam". The human rights organisation also condemned plans to deport foreign Muslims to countries known for human rights abuses.
As the British government also plans to outlaw the indirect incitement of terrorism and to ban organisations which glorify terrorism, critics say such measures could pose definition problems.
Nearly 40 organisations signed the IHRC statement, which condemned the government's proposed banning of pressure group Hizb al-Tahrir - one of the signatories to the six-point statement.
New arrests to protect Homeland Security
Earlier on Thursday, the British Immigration Service detained seven Algerians in raids in London and Manchester, in accordance with the Home Secretary's powers to deport the individuals whose presence in the UK is not conducive to the public good for reasons of national security.
The Immigration Act 1971 gives powers to deport individuals and to detain them pending deportation. The seven foreign nationals will be held in secure prison service accommodation and their names will not be disclosed.
Official sources said the Algerians were all former defendants accused of involvement in a 2002 plot to manufacture the deadly ricin poison.
Anti-terror proposals and arrests followed the July 7 suicide bombings in London which killed 52 commuters and wounded 700. Britain has since detained 10 foreigners for deportation on the grounds they are threats to security and barred a Muslim cleric. These include British cleric of Jordanian descent, Abu Qatada, previously described by Spanish officials as Osama Ben Laden's “spiritual ambassador in Europe.”
Like Abu Qatada, some of the foreigners detained on Thursday had spent up to three years in jail without trial under sweeping anti-terror legislation until their release in March after Britain's highest court ruled it unlawful. Since then, they have been supervised under so-called control orders, such as curfew or house arrest, and banned from using the telephone or Internet.
Londonstan, a haven for radicals
London has long been a centre for 'Islamist politics'. A framework of lenient asylum laws has allowed the development of the largest and most overt concentration of Islamist political activists since Taliban-ruled Afghanistan. The city's tolerance of exiled dissidents and terrorist sympathizers has attracted a polyglot group of intellectuals, preachers, financiers, arms traders, technology specialists, and forgers.
Radical Islamic exiles value London as a base in part because according to them "the legal system is quite stable and it cannot be influenced by politicians or by public opinion”.
Britain's reputation for providing a safe haven for Islamist terrorists made al-Qaida leader, Ousama Ben Laden, establish his "media office" in London in 1994 under the control of his associate Khalid al Fawwaz.
That office operated freely until 1998 when Fawwaz and two Egyptians who were running it were arrested under US extradition warrants in connection with the bombing of the US embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam. All three are staging lengthy and legally-aided battles against extradition. British intelligence officials concede that about 1,000 people have been recruited in Britain over recent years to fight for the Taliban in Afghanistan. Some of those graduated to al-Qaida training camps.
Other leading British Islamist extremists included Sheikh Abu Hamza al Masri and Sheikh Omar Bakri Mohammed.
Bakri is the leader of al-Muhajiroun, a highly vocal group which apes fringe Left-wing groups in trying to recruit impressionable young members at universities and mosques.
Abu Hamza al Masri, another cleric, received asylum in Britain from Egypt in the late '70s and British citizenship in 1981. He volunteered to fight in Afghanistan in the 1990s, then returned to Britain to preach justifications for violence against those he perceived to be Islam's enemies.
Throughout, Masri met periodically with Britain's intelligence services and anti-terrorism police, who were investigating his activities. The government moved to strip him of citizenship, but only in late 2004 did the Crown Prosecution Service conclude it had enough evidence to bring criminal charges, even though some of the speeches it relied on had taken place years before.
Others included the famous cleric Abu Qatada, who is said to be Ben Laden's “spiritual ambassador in Europe”. He is among the 10 foreign nationals Britain has decided to deport to their countries of origin.
Yasser Tawfiq Sirri, who ran a group called the Islamic Observation Center, was also arrested after 2001. He was mostly known for press releases critical of the Egyptian government.
It wasn't that big surprise that British nationals implemented the 7/7 blasts on London underground system and a double-decker bus. In 2001, Richard Reid, a British convert to Islam, tried to blow up an American Airlines flight with shoes packed with explosives. In 2003, two British Muslims blew themselves up in a Tel Aviv, Israel, bar, killing three people. Meanwhile, British-born "mujahedeen" were found fighting for the Taliban in Afghanistan.
A recent report by MI-5, a British domestic intelligence agency, warned that some British Muslim men were travelling to Iraq to fight against the US-led forces there, and may be returning home with radical ideas.
British Islamists criticize Blair's anti-terror plan
Several Islamists in Britain said that anti-terrorism measures have done little to ensure Britain is safe and secure from terrorist attack, but much to infringe the civil liberties of those living in the UK.
In an interview with the Arab weekly magazine Al Watane Al Arabi, Yasser Tawfiq al- Sirri, head of the Islamic Observation Centre in London, said that Blair's proposals follow Bush's path. He added that “Blair wants to turn Britain into a human rights cemetery.”
He said that the British government cannot deport Abu Qatada and others, because the decision was not approved by the parliament and remains just a draft.
The head of a London-based Islamic Centre has been charged with complicity in the suicide bombing that killed Afghan opposition leader Ahmed Shah Massood. Al-Sirri, 38, was detained on 23 October 2001, under Britain's new Terrorism Act.
Al-Sirri's Centre has for years served as a conduit for the messages of Ousama Ben Laden and his al-Qaida network. Besides raising money for Islamist causes, the centre publishes communiqués and articles by Islamist ideologues. Since the start of the US-led war on Afghanistan, al-Sirri's Islamic Observation Centre has also been issuing regular reports on the Jihad in Afghanistan.
On the other hand, the Egyptian Islamic scholar Zaki Badawi, disagree with al-Sirri's ideologies and backed Blair's proposals stating they are as necessary measures for the country's protection. Badawi also urged Britain to have direct dialogue with extremists.
“We do not fight their bodies, we fight their thoughts. If they are expelled, they are going to spread their radical thoughts elsewhere as their followers will see them as victims. Victimization is often their tool to have an impact on the public.”
Badawi was appointed director of the Islamic Cultural Centre (ICC) and Chief Imam of London Central Mosque in Regents Park in 1978. He served in these capacities until the end of 1981. During his time at the ICC, Badawi was instrumental in establishing the Sharia (Islamic Law) Council as a facility to reconcile conflicts between Islamic law and the British civil code. The Sharia Council now operates under the auspices of the Imams and Mosques Council. Badawi was elected chairman of the Imams and Mosques Council by the National Conference of Imams and Mosque Officials of the UK in 1984. He still holds this position.
Badawi has recently been criticized by extremists for having allowed women to take off their veil. He argued that women should be allowed to take off the Hijab, if wearing it threatens their lives.”
Badawi said that those, who think that Islam is reflected in wearing the Hijab, are narrow-minded. “They misuse the freedom offered by Britain to its citizens for a 'fake cause,” he stressed.
“People like Yasser al-Serri have little knowledge of religion, that's why they incite violence in Britain, a country which gave them shelter and refuge,” said Badawi.
When asked whether the legislators would approve Blair's 12-point plan, Badawi said “I think they will agree, because People in Britain are still scared to take the underground. The bombing have generated a great level of fear among Britons, that's why they insist that the government should take severe measures against those people, including Omar Bakri who is banned from returning back to Britain.”
Omar Bakri, a Syrian-born radical Islamist, is the founder of the London branch of Hizb al- Tahrir (the Islamic Liberation Party), and the organisation “Jama'at Al-Muhajirun”. He presents himself as the spokesperson of Ousama Ben Laden's International Islamic Front for Jihad Against Jews and Crusaders.
He was reported to have left the UK after rumours that the British Government was planning to investigate him (as well as other clerics) under little-used treason laws.
Mohammed Al-Massaari, another radical to be deported from Britain, told Al Watane Al Arabi in August that Blair is a war criminal who wants to hide his crimes by pointing fingers at others.
Al-Massaari thinks that even if the parliament approved Blair's proposals, the Prime Minister will not succeed in expelling radicals out of Britain. The radical Islamist argued that Londonstan will not collapse despite draconian anti-terror measures.
Today, Britain is accused by Ben Laden's followers as backing the Jews and Bush in their war against Islam, while the Jews accuse the UK of harbouring preachers of hate. Does this mean the end of Londonstan? Does this mean a suicide of civil liberties? Britain is in a real dilemma, but the country's Homeland Security remains the government's top priority.
By Karima Rhanem | Morocco TIMES 2/14/2006 | 3:44 pm
Morocco has categorically denied the stories run by the British weekly, The Sunday Times, and the Belgian daily, Le Soir, which reported on a would-be plan to build a secret prison in Morocco on behalf of the American intelligence Agency (CIA), MAP news agency reported.
The stories, published by the British and Brussels' papers respectively on February 12 and 13, are "pure allegations, devoid of any basis," said, on Monday, a release of the Ministry of Interior.
The Sunday Times reported that the US is helping Morocco to build a new interrogation and detention facility for al-Qaeda suspects near its capital, Rabat, quoting western intelligence sources. It also reported that the building was under way at Ain Aouda, above a wooded gorge south of Rabat's diplomatic district.
The Ministry of Interior criticized the two papers for lacking evidence. “Without backing up their sayings by any evidence, the papers affirm that Morocco, assisted by the US, would be building a "new detention and interrogation center," in Ain Aouda, near Rabat, said the communiqué.
The ministry added that the Belgian daily, Le Soir, claims that the military base of Ben Guerir, about 60 km north of Marrakech (South Morocco), will also be a potential secret detention devoted to terrorists linked to al-Qaeda.
Addressing the message to the national and international public opinion, the ministry's release recalled that Morocco, in its war against terrorism, respects the state of law and the rights and civil liberties of individuals and groups, in conformity with the international human rights code.
The release stressed that the Moroccan authorities, which are profoundly shocked and outraged at these allegations, reserve the right to undertake all the necessary measures to restore the complete truth."
The publication of the said allegations coincided with the visits of US FBI director, Robert Mueller, and the Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, to Morocco, who came to discuss security cooperation in the fight against terrorism.
Morocco has categorically denied the stories run by the British weekly, The Sunday Times, and the Belgian daily, Le Soir, which reported on a would-be plan to build a secret prison in Morocco on behalf of the American intelligence Agency (CIA), MAP news agency reported.
The stories, published by the British and Brussels' papers respectively on February 12 and 13, are "pure allegations, devoid of any basis," said, on Monday, a release of the Ministry of Interior.
The Sunday Times reported that the US is helping Morocco to build a new interrogation and detention facility for al-Qaeda suspects near its capital, Rabat, quoting western intelligence sources. It also reported that the building was under way at Ain Aouda, above a wooded gorge south of Rabat's diplomatic district.
The Ministry of Interior criticized the two papers for lacking evidence. “Without backing up their sayings by any evidence, the papers affirm that Morocco, assisted by the US, would be building a "new detention and interrogation center," in Ain Aouda, near Rabat, said the communiqué.
The ministry added that the Belgian daily, Le Soir, claims that the military base of Ben Guerir, about 60 km north of Marrakech (South Morocco), will also be a potential secret detention devoted to terrorists linked to al-Qaeda.
Addressing the message to the national and international public opinion, the ministry's release recalled that Morocco, in its war against terrorism, respects the state of law and the rights and civil liberties of individuals and groups, in conformity with the international human rights code.
The release stressed that the Moroccan authorities, which are profoundly shocked and outraged at these allegations, reserve the right to undertake all the necessary measures to restore the complete truth."
The publication of the said allegations coincided with the visits of US FBI director, Robert Mueller, and the Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, to Morocco, who came to discuss security cooperation in the fight against terrorism.
By Karima Rhanem | Morocco TIMES 4/13/2006 | 3:49 pm
Spain's investigating magistrate Juan Del Olmo said on Tuesday that the Moroccan Islamic Combatant Group (GICM), which he described as "the main agent of the Salafist Jihadist movement" in Spain, masterminded the 2004 Madrid train attacks.
The Spanish daily, El Pais, reported that Judge Del Olmo said he discovered the existence of two large networks during his investigation, all linked to the GICM, the first of which had directly participated in the attack attempts, while the second group facilitated the perpetrators' escape.
“The Madrid bombings, which left 191 dead and 1,755 injured, were masterminded by Islamist radicals who have links to the GICM: 7 suicide bombers, 4 fugitives, and 2 in prison. That's the conclusion of Del Olmo in his 1,470-page report issued on Tuesday,” the Spanish daily reported.
Founded in the late 1990s, the GICM was listed by the United States as a terrorist group which aimed to establish an Islamic state in Morocco and to support al-Qaeda's struggle against Western countries.
The GICM has also been linked to the 2003 attacks in Casablanca, which killed 45 people, among them the 12 suicide bombers.
Following the indictment, the Spanish investigating magistrate is prosecuting 29 of 116 for the 2004 Madrid attacks. The 29 indicted include 15 Moroccans, four other Arabs, a Syrian with Spanish nationality, and nine Spaniards.
Six of the men have been charged with mass murder or conspiring to mass murder, including Moroccan Jamal Zougam, who allegedly supplied the cell phones that detonated the bombs, and José Emilio Suárez Trashorras, a Spanish mine worker who helped secure the dynamite used in the explosives.
The remaining 23 named in the summary are indicted on charges that range from collaborating with a terrorist organization to trafficking in explosives.
According to the judge's detailed indictment, terrorists with the GICM received information of and access to classified documents from an organization named the Global Islamic Media via the Internet.
In September 2003, they received a document from the Media calling on them to act against Spain before the country's election and press Spain to pull back troops from Iraq, taking advantage of the consequences of the attacks. The report indicated that the Spanish alliance with the US increased the risk of terrorist attacks.
The indictment also says the cell spent about $120,000 to stage the attacks and caused material damage and civil liability of more than $26 million.
It said the central figure in the financing, planning and execution of the attacks was a Moroccan named Jamal Ahmidan. He and six other alleged ringleaders, including its ideological mastermind, Tunisian Serhan Ben Abdelmajid Fakhet, blew themselves up three weeks after the massacre as police moved in on their hideout in the Madrid suburb of Leganes.
Abdelmajid Bouchar, who was arrested last year in Serbia-Montenegro after being a fugitive, was identified by the police as having been at the Leganes apartment with the other terrorists.
El Pais said that Del Olmo also excluded ETA's relation with the slaughter, a theory that the former government under the presidency of José Maria Aznar tried to maintain.
The Christian Science Monitor stated that “the report released this week by a Spanish investigative magistrate illuminates one of the most pressing questions arising from both the bombings in Madrid and, later, in London: Did al-Qaeda operatives direct these assaults on Europe, or simply inspire them?”
The 1,470-page summary indicates that the Madrid bombers were actually members of an independent network of Salafist radicals active in North Africa, and that Osama bin Laden's organization merely exercised a kind of guiding influence.
This week it was also reported that British officials have determined the London bombers were also an autonomous cell that drew little more than inspiration from al-Qaeda.
“The attacks were the product of a simple and inexpensive plot hatched by four British suicide bombers bent on martyrdom rather than an international terror network. There was no fifth bomber and no direct support from al-Qaeda, although two of the bombers had visited Pakistan,” said a government report, which will be published in the next few weeks,” reported The Observer.
The Madrid bombings were Spain's worst terrorist attack and are seen as having brought down a conservative Spanish government that backed the US-led war in Iraq.
Spain's investigating magistrate Juan Del Olmo said on Tuesday that the Moroccan Islamic Combatant Group (GICM), which he described as "the main agent of the Salafist Jihadist movement" in Spain, masterminded the 2004 Madrid train attacks.
The Spanish daily, El Pais, reported that Judge Del Olmo said he discovered the existence of two large networks during his investigation, all linked to the GICM, the first of which had directly participated in the attack attempts, while the second group facilitated the perpetrators' escape.
“The Madrid bombings, which left 191 dead and 1,755 injured, were masterminded by Islamist radicals who have links to the GICM: 7 suicide bombers, 4 fugitives, and 2 in prison. That's the conclusion of Del Olmo in his 1,470-page report issued on Tuesday,” the Spanish daily reported.
Founded in the late 1990s, the GICM was listed by the United States as a terrorist group which aimed to establish an Islamic state in Morocco and to support al-Qaeda's struggle against Western countries.
The GICM has also been linked to the 2003 attacks in Casablanca, which killed 45 people, among them the 12 suicide bombers.
Following the indictment, the Spanish investigating magistrate is prosecuting 29 of 116 for the 2004 Madrid attacks. The 29 indicted include 15 Moroccans, four other Arabs, a Syrian with Spanish nationality, and nine Spaniards.
Six of the men have been charged with mass murder or conspiring to mass murder, including Moroccan Jamal Zougam, who allegedly supplied the cell phones that detonated the bombs, and José Emilio Suárez Trashorras, a Spanish mine worker who helped secure the dynamite used in the explosives.
The remaining 23 named in the summary are indicted on charges that range from collaborating with a terrorist organization to trafficking in explosives.
According to the judge's detailed indictment, terrorists with the GICM received information of and access to classified documents from an organization named the Global Islamic Media via the Internet.
In September 2003, they received a document from the Media calling on them to act against Spain before the country's election and press Spain to pull back troops from Iraq, taking advantage of the consequences of the attacks. The report indicated that the Spanish alliance with the US increased the risk of terrorist attacks.
The indictment also says the cell spent about $120,000 to stage the attacks and caused material damage and civil liability of more than $26 million.
It said the central figure in the financing, planning and execution of the attacks was a Moroccan named Jamal Ahmidan. He and six other alleged ringleaders, including its ideological mastermind, Tunisian Serhan Ben Abdelmajid Fakhet, blew themselves up three weeks after the massacre as police moved in on their hideout in the Madrid suburb of Leganes.
Abdelmajid Bouchar, who was arrested last year in Serbia-Montenegro after being a fugitive, was identified by the police as having been at the Leganes apartment with the other terrorists.
El Pais said that Del Olmo also excluded ETA's relation with the slaughter, a theory that the former government under the presidency of José Maria Aznar tried to maintain.
The Christian Science Monitor stated that “the report released this week by a Spanish investigative magistrate illuminates one of the most pressing questions arising from both the bombings in Madrid and, later, in London: Did al-Qaeda operatives direct these assaults on Europe, or simply inspire them?”
The 1,470-page summary indicates that the Madrid bombers were actually members of an independent network of Salafist radicals active in North Africa, and that Osama bin Laden's organization merely exercised a kind of guiding influence.
This week it was also reported that British officials have determined the London bombers were also an autonomous cell that drew little more than inspiration from al-Qaeda.
“The attacks were the product of a simple and inexpensive plot hatched by four British suicide bombers bent on martyrdom rather than an international terror network. There was no fifth bomber and no direct support from al-Qaeda, although two of the bombers had visited Pakistan,” said a government report, which will be published in the next few weeks,” reported The Observer.
The Madrid bombings were Spain's worst terrorist attack and are seen as having brought down a conservative Spanish government that backed the US-led war in Iraq.
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