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Exposing the role that Islamic jihad theology and ideology play in the modern global conflicts

UK government paid £1,000,000 to jihadi “seen at al-Qaeda terror camp”

May 18, 2014 7:01 am By Robert Spencer

feroz-abbasiThe UK government is so absurd that it is hard to believe it isn’t a parody. Perhaps eventually Tony Blair, Gordon Brown, and David Cameron, as well as Jack Straw, Jacqui Smith and Theresa May, will reveal themselves to be a new Monty Python-style comedy troupe, having a laugh at the world by pretending to be competent politicians acting in Britain’s best interests. Or perhaps future generations will remember them as those who, through their folly and willful ignorance, brought about the death of Britain as a free state and a free society.

£1,000,000 is $1,682,000. Nice compensation for jihad.

“Ministers paid £1m to suspect ‘seen at al-Qaeda terror camp,’” by Robert Mendick, Telegraph, May 18, 2014:

The Government paid a suspected terrorist up to £1 million compensation even though Whitehall officials had been told that he had been at an al-Qaeda training camp planning attacks on Jewish and American targets.

Feroz Abbasi, who was captured by American forces in Afghanistan in 2001, was one of 16 detainees held at Guantánamo Bay who were paid £20 million in 2010 by the Government to settle claims of UK complicity in their rendition and detention.

Legal documents show that an al-Qaeda “supergrass” had informed security agencies in 2004 that Abbasi had been sent to Afghanistan by the extremist cleric Abu Hamza “to receive jihad training in support of al-Qaeda”.

Abbasi, 34, a former computer student from Croydon, south London, was captured in Afghanistan in 2001 and released from Guantánamo in 2005.

The documents raise concerns about why the UK was prepared to pay compensation to Abbasi when they had hard evidence that he had been at the heart of a terrorist organisation which was planning attacks on the West.

In the secret deal in 2010 between the detainees and the UK Government, both sides signed confidentiality agreements meaning the public may never know why so much money was paid out to the detainees.

Authorities in Guantanamo Bay believed Abbasi was a ‘confirmed member’ of al-Qaeda (AFP)

The Cabinet Office says it is still bound by the terms of the settlement and refuses to say exactly how much was paid and who received it.

But Robin Simcox, an expert in al-Qaeda matters who is a research fellow at the Henry Jackson Society, a respected London-based think tank, described the Abbasi pay-off as “troubling”.

Mr Simcox said: “The Government agreed a settlement with the Guantánamo detainees because it believed it was better than a lengthy litigation process in which secret intelligence would be exposed and national security could be seriously damaged.

“However, there was never an admittance of liability that the security services had done anything wrong. In Feroz Abbasi’s case, the facts have always pointed towards his involvement with dangerous, extremist causes, which makes his payout all the more troubling.”

Lord Carlile, the former independent reviewer of terrorism legislation, also criticised the payments to Islamists who had been to terror training camps.

He said: “We must ensure in the future that such payments are not made where the person is shown to have been acting contrary to the national interest.”

The new documents were prepared by US prosecutors and are based on the testimony of Saajid Badat, an al-Qaeda supergrass who turned informer in return for a shorter prison sentence.

Badat, who was sentenced to 13 years for an airline bomb plot in 2005, was freed just five years later after a secret court hearing authorised his agreement to become a cooperating witness.

A year before the Guantánamo Bay deal British authorities and the FBI interviewed Badat over the course of several weeks.

In written testimony prepared by the US prosecutors against Abu Hamza and other terror suspects, Badat said he had met Abbasi in 2001 in Kandahar, Afghanistan.

He was told by an al-Qaeda leader to look after Abbasi, taking him to a guesthouse “run by al-Qaeda.”

During a meeting in Afghanistan, Badat says he saw Abbasi at al-Qaeda’s al-Farouq training camp, which admitted only those “trusted by al-Qaeda.” Badat says that Abbasi’s training at al-Farouq included “weapons, such as AK-47s, explosives and navigation”.

Badat told the US he acted as a translator during a meeting between Abbasi and “two of al-Qaeda’s most senior leaders,” Abu Hafs al-Masri and Saif al-Adel. Abu Hafs was al-Qaeda’s military chief until he died in an American air strike in late 2001. Saif al-Adel remains a senior al-Qaeda leader to this day.

The pair of al-Qaeda leaders asked Abbasi whether he “would be willing to engage in attacks against American and Jewish targets outside of Afghanistan”.

According to the US Justice Department “Badat will testify that Abbasi responded affirmatively” to the request.

The department says that Badat “first provided information about Abbasi’s role in a conspiracy with [Abu Hamza] in 2004”. And Badat has provided consistent testimony several times since then.

Another unnamed witness known only as CW-1 has corroborated Badat’s account.

At Hamza’s US trial, Badat told the court that he saw Abbasi at al-Qaeda’s al-Farouq terror training camp in 2001. Under cross-examination, however, Badat acknowledged that the only time he saw Abbasi, he was using a spade to dig the ground. But he testified that those attending the camp were given military training for violent jihad operations.

The US Guantánamo authorities considered Abbasi to be a “confirmed member” of al-Qaeda, who had “pledged to martyr himself in jihad against the West and the United States in particular”.

Abbasi was also deemed “a high threat to the US, its interests and its allies.” JTF-GTMO even considered Abbasi “a candidate for prosecution as a terrorist” in a military court. It was recommended that he be “retained under” the Department of Defence’s control.

Instead, less than two years after his capture, Abbasi was transferred to Britain, where he was freed without charge. Less than a year after his release the Home Office withdrew his passport on “strong grounds for believing that, on leaving the UK, you would take part in activities against the UK or allied targets”.

Following his return to Britain, Abbasi enrolled at a London university and married, later becoming a father. The Telegraph was unable to contact him for comment last week and his lawyers did not return calls.

Abbasi was born in Uganda but came to the UK with his mother when he was eight. He began worshipping at Finsbury Park mosque as a teenager, where Hamza, who is currently on trial in New York and whose fate will be decided this week, was the preacher.

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Filed Under: United Kingdom, Useful idiots Tagged With: featured


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Comments

  1. duh_swami says

    May 18, 2014 at 7:31 am

    Well, I’m sure that it was poverty that caused him to get ‘radicalized’ and become a terrorist…I’m sure that now that he is rich he has abandoned jihad and become a moderate. What it does show is that jihad is a legitimate path to riches…Mahound was right after all…’A little work, but a great reward’…

    • Reality Check says

      May 18, 2014 at 8:45 am

      Actually, it makes more sense to think that the poor have no time to dwell on Jihad because they are too busy to make a living and survive. It is the rich who have outlived the worry about their material needs not being met that have all the time of the world to dwell on Jihad.

    • Scoffer1 says

      May 19, 2014 at 12:40 pm

      Who is Mahound? Never heard of him…

      • jon says

        May 19, 2014 at 4:18 pm

        nick name of mohammed, given by crusaders

    • jon says

      May 19, 2014 at 4:15 pm

      way to go swami, mahound is the word a moslem should be known as. Thanx to crusaders for inventing this word

  2. RichardTheLionheart says

    May 18, 2014 at 8:15 am

    Ohhh brilliant. Not only do we not put two and two together and get 4 but we also pay out upto £1M in cash.

    Much easier than robbing a bank, just go to syria get banged up complain about human rights violations and voila your a millionaire easy as that.

    How disgusting, and yet we have service personel and families that are fighting over claiming what should be rightfully theirs.

    We should all be ashamed in Britain as we have allowed this once great nation to succumb to this.

  3. Jeff says

    May 18, 2014 at 8:21 am

    One more reason why things are going to be changing politically in a major way in England.

    • john spielman says

      May 18, 2014 at 10:15 am

      I fear that unless the UK govt wakes up quickly to the threat that islamofascism poses to the country, the people will arise and a very uncivil war will ensue.

  4. Baleon says

    May 18, 2014 at 9:59 am

    jesus said if thy brother smites thy cheek offer him the other 7times 70=4200.
    at almost 39000 attacks since sept 11 2001
    maybe these fools have used up the forgivness alloted.

  5. WVinMN says

    May 18, 2014 at 10:14 am

    Robert, you can assign blame to Blair, Cameron, Brown (or Bush, Obama, Clinton) and score “populist points” all day long. However, the PEOPLE of England and the US CHOOSE their leaders, and they continue to choose poorly. Until far more people begin to take an interest into the affairs of state (domestic and foreign) dolts will continue pulling the levers of power.

  6. Beth says

    May 18, 2014 at 2:19 pm

    “The documents raise concerns about why the UK was prepared to pay compensation to Abbasi when they had hard evidence that he had been at the heart of a terrorist organisation which was planning attacks on the West.”

    I’ve been saying for more than a decade: The authorities (in the UK and America) are either being bought off – or are closet muslims. The reason I say this is because of a few things that Jesus said – one of them being:

    Mat 7:18 A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit.

    Mat 7:20 Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them.

    This is how to know.

    And people can say I’m crazy (and they have) of which I take no offense. But that is what I believe and will continue to believe – untill the end.

  7. jon says

    May 19, 2014 at 4:22 pm

    islam can be defeated only if all infidels unite regardless of their different beliefs/religions.
    this killing cult of islam has slaughtered some 300 million non-moslems and still held-bent on continuing slaughter. time to pay them back (but only thru unity)

  8. Linda Rivera says

    May 19, 2014 at 4:39 pm

    No surprise that the UK government paid £1,000,000 to jihadi “seen at al-Qaeda terror camp” Muslim terrorists are top FAVORITES of UK leaders. Vile Pakistani muslim Choudary brags that he receives “Jihad Seekers Allowance” from the government, allowing him to spend all his waking hours on jihad activities. He lives in luxury in a large home with his family.

    9,000 homeless British vets and other desperate homeless Britons live on the streets, DENIED HELP! The homes and benefits that rightfully belong to indigenous Brits have been GIVEN AWAY to massive numbers of muslim immigrants!

    UK ruling elites are determined to annihilate the freedom and human rights of hated non-muslims and eventually enslave indigenous Brits under barbaric sharia law.

    Colonising Britain with millions of muslims is the major way UK ruling elites are accomplishing muslim conquest of Britain. Patriotic Brits who protest Islamisation are viciously persecuted by the elites.

    LIBERTY GB
    Video: Paul Weston Could Face 2 Years in Jail for Quoting Churchill
    The leader of the Liberty GB party Paul Weston, who was arrested on Saturday for breaching a Section 27 Dispersal Notice, is now possibly facing imprisonment for 2 years.

    Mr Weston, a candidate in the 22 May European Elections in the South East, was arrested on 26 April in front of Winchester Guildhall for quoting in public a passage critical of Islam written by Winston Churchill, using a megaphone. http://libertygb.org.uk/v1/index.php/home/root/news-libertygb/6390-video-paul-weston-could-face-2-years-in-jail-for-quoting-churchill

    Join patriotic counter jihad political party, Liberty GB! http://libertygb.org.uk/v1/

  9. Smart guy says

    May 20, 2014 at 2:51 am

    The Catholic Church has known for centuries that at the highest level Freemasons worship Satan or Lucifer. The Hex or symbol of witchcraft, a six pointed star inside a circle, is on all the Freemasons aprons. The ruling class of England is run by the Masons. Prince Phillip is a 33rd level Freemason the highest level in Scottish Rite Masonary. Him and Prince Charles went to the Giza Pyamid in Eygpt in an attempt to ressurect the Pharoh from the tomb by placing a capstone on the top of the Pyramid. However, objections to such Paganism by the Moslems were so violent the attempt was cancelled and both
    Princes returned to England. In Hyde Park London there is a statue of Peter Pan.
    He has the legs and hooves of a goat. Why a goat? The goat god is one of the gods or demons that is worshipped by the masons. If you worship the devil you become possesed by a demon, the demon then takes over so that you do the bidding of the demon. The devil of demons like to run their own churches.
    Joseph Smith was a 33rd level mason, the founder of the Mormon church.
    Mormons are so heavy into Freemasonary that they wear Freemason symbols on their underwear !! Take a look at a Mormon Temple or stake house. You will see a sacred pillar you will not see a cross. The sacred pillar or needle is a pagan symbol. It comes from Eygpt. “I am the God that brought you out of the house of slaves (Eygpt) you must have no other gods against my face.”

    • Mirren10 says

      May 20, 2014 at 8:09 am

      I think you should choose another moniker, dear. ‘smart ‘ guy is too redolent of bathos.

      I can’t be bothered to parse your drivel about freemasons et al, but your nonsense about Peter Pan is too ridiculous to ignore. Peter Pan’s statue is in Kensington Gardens, not Hyde Park, and below is a picture of it.

      Oh yes, the goaty legs and feet of Peter Pan are there for all to see ! 🙂 What an idiot you are !

      http://rpmedia.ask.com/ts?u=/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/a0/PeterPan_Statue_Londres.jpg/250px-PeterPan_Statue_Londres.jpg

    • Mirren10 says

      May 20, 2014 at 8:54 am

      And here:

      http://media1.picsearch.com/is?wY0xoJVY0PmgN93dMe7HlM9_F7y2LOvpH1y-8uRy_vI&height=316

  10. DEREK says

    May 24, 2014 at 7:45 pm

    Please explain why you are blaming Tony Blair, Gordon Brown, Jack Straw, and Jacqui Smith? The reason I ask, is because this character being in the UK, and being paid compensation of £1million, has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with those politicians.

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