A center of controversy for seven years, and still operating. “Bookshop linked to Bin Laden’s ‘general,'” by Richard Alleyne in the Telegraph, with thanks to Sr. Soph:
The Islamic bookshop raided yesterday has been at the centre of controversy for seven years.
The Maktabah store has been raided three times under the Prevention of Terrorism Act. It has links with several past and present terror suspects including Moazzam Begg, who was held in Guantanamo Bay, and Dhiren Barot, 34, jailed for 40 years last November for planning attacks and said to be Osama bin Laden’s “UK general”.
Maktabah, Arabic for library, is in Sparkhill and sells DVDs of bin Laden as well as books calling on British Muslims to rise up against the West. Titles include 21st Century CrUSAders: A War On Muslims In Iraq And Palestine and Heroes of Islam.
It also published a book by Barot which was used in evidence against him when he was jailed for planning a “dirty bomb” attack on London.
In 2000 the store, then based a few hundred yards from its current location, was raided by 60 officers, who took away books, files, computers and questioned staff.
It was owned by Imran Khan, a former stockbroker, and Begg. No one was charged and Begg later left to set up a school in Afghanistan. He was picked up by US officials and spent three years at Guantanamo before being released without charge in 2005….
In Nov 2003, both stores were raided along with an office he retained above the book store and his parents’ home in Birmingham….
A website linked to the shop was still selling radical books yesterday.