January 2003 the police raided the mosque seeking evidence in connection with a plot to manufacture poisons and explosives, and the murder of Detective Constable Stephen Oake. The key evidence — a photocopier used to make copies of recipes for ricin and cyanide — was recovered, but police found much more besides. Hidden in the mosque was a stash of military equipment including knives, air pistols, gas masks, chemical protective clothing and radios. All of it had been used for training would-be Mujahidin. Also found were hundreds of fake and stolen passports, credit cards and European ID cards — essential paraphernalia of terrorist fundraising and identity fraud.
Scotland Yard wanted to put the haul on display. But Crown lawyers said that to do so would prejudice a series of forthcoming trials. So the truth of what was found in Abu Hamza’s fortress remained secret for three years, and counter-terrorist agencies were vilified for raiding a place of worship.
Kamel Bourgass, who lived in the mosque, was found guilty of the poison plot and the murder of DC Oake in 2004. But still no mention could be made of what had been found in the mosque or Bourgass’s links with Abu Hamza. It was not until the end of Abu Hamza’s trial in February that it could be disclosed how the cleric had turned a London mosque into an al-Qaeda training facility that produced the likes of Bourgass, shoebomber Richard Reid and Zacarias Moussaoui, the would-be 9/11 hijacker.
The three-year information vacuum was filled by ill-informed pundits blithely pronouncing that there was no al-Qaeda network or terror threat to Britain, that armed police on our streets were a political ploy, the ricin plot was a confection, Bourgass was a mad loner and Abu Hamza nothing more than a cartoon fanatic.
July 7 proved them all wrong. Britain’s first suicide bombings were perpetrated by Britons who had heard the preachings of Abu Hamza and other extremist clerics, and who were plugged into a wider terror network. But the extent of their terrorist connections is something that you, the public, are still not allowed to know.
Leave a Reply