Zoud: What’s the big deal?
Why would Zoud have called Abu Qatada? Isn’t Abu Qatada an exponent of the tiny minority of extremists who have perverted Islam? From The Australian, with thanks to Jean-Luc:
IT’S late at night and Abdul Salam Zoud has a problem. The leader of Sydney’s Islamic fundamentalists needs prompt answers to some serious and specific questions.
His fellow clerics around Australia are sound asleep or uncontactable.
So he telephones one of al-Qaeda’s most dangerous figures halfway across the world.
Sheikh Zoud sees nothing wrong with speaking with Abu Qatada – accused of providing a British safehaven for terrorists, including the chief suspect in the Madrid train bombings. He knows nothing of these claims. Qatada, now detained as part of Britain’s war on terror, is an expert in Islamic divorce and Sheikh Zoud needs his guidance.
This is Sheikh Zoud’s explanation of a series of events that has led to him being named this month as a terrorist recruiter.
He denies claims in a French secret dossier that he is a recruiter for jihad in Australia and has links with terrorists around the world.
Prepared by a top anti-terrorism judge in France, the dossier is based on interrogations with jailed French terrorist suspect Willie Brigitte.
Zoud, by the way, is the guy who isn’t sure that Osama bin Laden is guilty of the 9/11 attacks, despite Osama’s boasting about them.