Abdullah el-Faisal

Abdullah el-Faisal (born Trevor William Forrest, also known as Abdullah al-Faisal, Sheikh Faisal, Sheik Faisal, and Imam Al-Jamaikee, born 10 September 1963) is a Jamaican Muslim cleric who preached in the United Kingdom until he was convicted of stirring up racial hatred and urging his followers to murder Jews, Hindus, Christians, and Americans and other "unbelievers".

El-Faisal was sentenced to nine years in prison, of which he served four years before being deported to Jamaica in 2007. He subsequently traveled to Africa, but was deported from Botswana in 2009 and from Kenya back to Jamaica in January 2010.

Early life

El-Faisal was born in Saint James Parish to an evangelical Christian family which belonged to the Salvation Army church, a Christian denomination.
He grew up in the small farming village of Point, about from the city of Montego Bay, in upper St. James, Jamaica. He attended Springfield All-Age, then Maldon Primary and Junior High. At age 16, he converted to Islam, after being introduced to the religion by a teacher at Maldon High School.

He began using the name Abdullah el-Faisal shortly after graduating Maldon in 1980, and changed it legally in 1983. In 1981, in Trinidad, he took a six-week course in Islamic and Arabic studies sponsored by the Saudi Arabian government. He left Jamaica in 1983 for Guyana where he studied Arabic and Islam for a year. Starting in 1984, El-Faisal studied Islam for seven years on a Saudi government scholarship at the Imam Muhammad ibn Saud Islamic University in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. He then moved to the UK later in the 1980s.

England: 1991–2003

El-Faisal was sent to the United Kingdom to preach by Sheikh Raji. He returned to the UK in 1991, became the imam at the Brixton Mosque in South London, began preaching to crowds of up to 500 people at the mosque and at Brixton Town Hall. He married his second wife, Pakistani-British biology graduate Zubeida Khan whom he met months after his arrival, in 1992, thereby acquiring rights of residence.Lister, Sam, "Bloodcurdling brand of hatred taken on tour of Britain,"
''The Times'', 25 February 2003. Retrieved 24 January 2010 This meant he had two wives, as his first marriage was still extant. In 1993, el-Faisal was ejected by Brixton Mosque's administration who objected to his radical preaching.

Afterward, he gave a lecture he called ''The Devil's Deception of the Saudi Salafis'', where he attacked the Brixton Mosque management on the basis of their alleged subservience to the corrupt rulers of Saudi Arabia. He opened a study center in Tower Hamlets, East London.

Referred to as " Sheikh" by his followers, el-Faisal travelled and lectured to audiences in mosques in Birmingham, London, and Dewsbury in West Yorkshire, and in Manchester, Worthing, Bournemouth, Cardiff, Swansea, Coventry, Maidenhead, Tipton, Beeston, and venues in Scotland and Wales. Some of his lectures were taped and sold at Islamic bookshops. He also called on Muslim mothers to raise their children to be ''jihad'' soldiers by the age of 15. The content of those taped lectures served as the basis for his later trial and conviction.

In February 2002, El-Faisal's tapes were purchased by an undercover police officer at an Islamic bookshop at 62 Brick Lane in London and seized under a search warrant at Zam Zam Bookshop at 388 Green Street in East Ham and at his home at 104 Albert Square in Stratford. He was arrested on 18 February 2002.

El-Faisal is an associate of Abu Hamza al-Masri, the Egyptian ousted from the Finsbury Park mosque who is known for preaching against non-Muslims, and who is currently incarcerated in the United States for various offenses. El-Faisal is reportedly a former supporter of Osama bin Laden, and has been linked to al-Qaeda members.

Conviction and imprisonment: 2003–07

; Conviction
After a four-week trial at the Old Bailey, el-Faisal was found guilty by a jury of six men and six women on 24 February 2003 of: (a) three charges of soliciting the murder of Jews, Americans, Hindus, and Christians; and (b) two charges of using threatening words to stir up racial hatred, in tapes of speeches to his followers. He was the first Muslim cleric to be tried in the UK.
; Taped lectures
In tapes of lectures he had given, he exhorted Muslim women to buy toy guns for their children, to train them for ''jihad''. El-Faisal tried to recruit British schoolboys for Jihad training camps, promising them "seventy-two virgins in paradise" if they died fighting a holy war. El-Faisal said "Those who want to go to ''Jannah'' aradise it's easy, just kill a ''Kaffar'' nbeliever... by killing that Kaffar you have purchased your ticket to paradise." He suggested killing non-Muslims like "cockroaches."

On one tape, titled " Jihad", he said: "Our methodology is the bullet, not the ballot." In a tape called "Rules of Jihad", thought to have been made before the 9/11 attacks, he said: "You have to learn how to shoot. You have to learn how to fly planes, drive tanks, and you have to learn how to load your guns and to use missiles. You are only allowed to use nuclear weapons in that country which is 100% unbelievers." He encouraged the use of "anything, even chemical weapons," to "exterminate non-believers." A picture of the burning World Trade Center was on the cover of one recording.

He lectured: "You can go to India, and if you see a Hindu walking down the road you are allowed to kill him and take his money, is that clear, because there is no peace treaty between us." He also suggested that power plants could use the dead bodies of Hindus as fuel.Attewill, Fred, "Race hate preacher Faisal deported,"
''The Guardian'', 25 May 2007. Retrieved 6 January 2009 "Jews," el-Faisal said, "should be killed ... as by Hitler." He said: "People with British passports, if you fly into Israel, it is easy. Fly into Israel and do whatever you can. If you die, you are up in paradise. How do you fight a Jew? You kill a Jew. In the case of Hindus, by bombing their businesses."

During the trial, he denied he had intended to incite people to violence. He also testified that he had held Osama bin Laden in "great respect," but that bin Laden had "lost the path" since 11 September.
; Sentencing and appeal
El-Faisal was sentenced on 7 March 2003 to nine years in prison. He received seven years for soliciting murder, 12 months to run concurrently for using threatening words with intent to stir up racial hatred, and a further two years (to run consecutively) for distributing threatening recordings with intent to stir up racial hatred. Old Bailey judge Peter Beaumont delivered the sentence. He said el-Faisal had "fanned the flames of hostility", and told him: "As the jury found, you not only preached hate, but the words you uttered in those meetings were recorded to reach a wider audience. You urged those who listened and watched to kill those who did not share your faith." The judge suggested that el-Faisal serve at least half his sentence, and then be deported.

On 17 February 2004, el-Faisal lost an appeal of his conviction. While in prison, he attempted to improve conditions, saying: "if you're a cleric, you have to set an example for other Muslim prisoners to follow, and you're not supposed to crack under pressure." He ended up serving four years.

Followers: 9/11 plotter, Richard Reid, 7/7 and Flight 253 bombers

Prosecutors said he preached to 2001 shoe bomber Richard Reid and 9/11 plotter Zacarias Moussaoui.

In addition, two of the four accused 2005 7/7 suicide bombers, Muhammad Sidique Khan, responsible for the Edgware Road blast that killed 6 people, and Jamaican-born Briton Germaine Lindsay, responsible for the blast that killed 26 people at King's Cross tube station, were followers of El-Faisal. In an interview with the ''BBC
...