‘The Suicide Factory Abu Hamza and The Finsbury Park Mosque’ Sean O’ Neill & Daniel McGory

Mr Wole Soyinka the Nobel laureate recently described this country as a ‘cesspit,’ in respect of the growth of Islamic fanaticism. Reading this book one can only but agree that he has hit the mark. It is clear that during the 1990’s Britain in general and London in particular became the sanctuary for and the breeding ground of persons holding the vilest and virulent ideologies that ultimately culminated in mass murder in New York, Madrid and London itself. What makes this story so exasperating is the role of the security services, who did not turn a blind eye upon those who were conspiring to commit mass murder, no they looked on indulgently. For the murders to be committed were to be committed overseas, for the most part in far off places of which we know little.[1] The truly disgusting Mr Hamza was allowed at every stage to firstly strong-arm himself into control of the Mosque then to commit multiple offences as he allowed the mosque to become the centre for Social security and credit card fraud, identity theft and a conduit for terrorists on their way to commit murder from Afghanistan to Washington DC.
The most infuriating aspect of this sordid story is the fact that the same security services are now being equipped with a whole library shelf full of laws that role back civil liberties in a way inconceivable before 9/11, when if they had used existing law before 2001 all this could have been avoided, more importantly possibly 9/11 and definitely 7/7 could have been averted. Hamza did not win a bitter struggle; it was gifted to him on a platter.
[1] Or in some cases closer to home, since many of the Algerians under observation were planning attacks in France.

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