From the He Was A Wonderful Fellow Who Would Never Have Gotten Involved in This Sort of Thing Department, via the Scotsman, with thanks to Effractor:
Hazil Rahaman-Alan comes from a wealthy and privileged
background, not from the usual backstreets which breed radicalism.
Never mind that study after study has shown that it isn’t “backstreets” that breed “radicalism” at all.
His family are pillars of Venezuelan society and are still rocked by his arrest in London….
He was a devout Muslim and had worked in a mosque as a receptionist.
Rahaman-Alan travelled extensively between 2001 and 2002 visiting Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Afghanistan and Germany.
While in Germany he claimed asylum using a false name, date of birth and falsely claiming he was a Palestinian.
His actions and movements could well be mistaken for that of a terrorist. Detectives from Scotland Yard travelled the world trying to trace his life.
But there was no suggestion he held extremist political or religious views or was exposed to radical elements. Mr Dean said: “There is no evidence to suggest while in Germany he was in contact with other groups or engaged in terrorism.
“His views were that he was against terrorism. The overall pictures which emerges from Germany and Venezuela is of a placid man with some personal frustrations but no extremist views or violent intention.”
He was said to be moved by the plight of starving children in Africa and wanted to turn himself into a suicide bomber to draw attention to them.
Yes, one often finds placid men with personal frustrations blowing themselves up to draw attention to the plight of the underprivileged. Happens all the time.
He existed on a shoestring in the years between 2000 and 2003 when he returned to Venezuela after being turned down for asylum in Germany.
There he planned to make the grenade he bought for less than £50 “his microphone to the world”. It was only two strokes of luck which stopped him the first suicide bomber to cause mayhem in the UK.
The first was that the detonator was missing from the grenade – and a customs officer stopped him in a random check on travellers.
Effractor points out that “No link is made between this man’s actions and his religion – the idea is simply not entertained. Which makes for a news article that, to my eyes and no doubt many others’, is nothing short of surreal. Unsurprisingly, the good old Beeb manages to go one better, managing to omit any reference at all to Hazil’s religion: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4412345.stm.”