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Web sting links Hamza to terror camps
A SOPHISTICATED internet sting has provided fresh evidence linking Abu Hamza to terror camps. Hamza is said to have been so convinced by a British undercover investigator posing as an extremist website operator that he allegedly sent him several secret propaganda films designed to attract new recruits. The videos were used to convince British Muslims to undergo jihad training at camps in Afghanistan and Bosnia. The tapes and e-mails were obtained by Glen Jenvey, a 38-year-old freelance counterintelligence investigator from Wiltshire, over a period of more than a year. As the evidence flowed in, Jenvey forwarded it to the FBI, which is now building a case to extradite Hamza to America.
| Thank you, Times, for publishing his name and location. I hope his survivors sue your ass off... |
Last week Scotland Yard confirmed that anti-terrorist branch officers had taken a statement from Jenvey and sent a copy to the FBI. The evidence is being marshalled by US government prosecutors in New York, where Hamza is part of a grand jury investigation into a plot to provide weapons training to American mujaheddin on a cattle ranch in Bly, Oregon. If the grand jury charges Hamza with conspiracy to provide material support to terrorists, which carries a 25-year jail sentence, sources close to the case say they will press for his extradition to America.
| I'd guess that the grand jury's going to indict him, unless the DA's been dropped on his head... |
According to statements given to the anti-terrorist branch in March, Jenvey set up an internet site called islamic-news.co.uk in 2002 using the fictitious name Pervez Khan. He published news items on the site from Kashmiri extremist groups and other hardline Islamic propaganda. Once established, he sent the material to Hamzaâs website — supportersofshariah.org, which is now shut down. âHe was so pleased with this he decided to put a link to my site from his site. That was his first big mistake,â said Jenvey last week. As a consequence, Jenvey was able to monitor everyone who logged on to Hamzaâs website, a facility he passed on to the FBI so that it could also monitor Hamzaâs activities.
| Being a dope, I'd only know how to monitor everyone who clicked through. But go on... |
He then decided to take the operation a step further. âBy now I was getting close to Hamza. He trusted me,â said Jenvey. âWe had been e-mailing each other a lot and I had been passing the e-mails to the FBI. We also started to speak on the phone. âI started to suggest I could help him recruit people for his jihad. He became very excited by this. He would burble prayers down the phone in an almost demented fashion. I thought he must be a bit mad.
| "A bit." That's British understatement, y'know... |
âHe said he would send me some material to help me win supporters and prepare them for jihad. He said he had some special tapes but that they were somewhere secret and he did not keep them in the mosque. He said they would be sent to me.â Less than a month later a package arrived at Jenveyâs home. Inside were 20 audio tapes. A second package arrived a week later with six two-hour video tapes. Jenvey was shocked by what he saw. One tape starts by showing a training camp in Bosnia and scenes of urban combat training. Jihad anthems play in the background and a voice in English says: âMake ready to continue to terrorise the enemy of Allah.â
| Ummm... Has anyone sought out those training camps in Bosnia, by chance? |
The tape later cuts to Hamza speaking to a private audience in London about âso-calledâ suicide bombers. He appears to use the Koran to justify the tactic. âIt is to inflict suffering, it is in the time, in the methodology of suicide, it is there and at its peak,â says Hamza. In another tape, three British volunteers are interviewed in Bosnia about their experiences. All three urge Muslims at home to undergo jihad training and criticise those who are content to merely donate money or lend moral support. The first volunteer identifies himself as being from north London. He says he is a third-year medical student at Birmingham University. Hiding his face behind a black scarf, he holds an assault rifle aloft as he speaks to the camera and talks about the satisfaction of seeing âhundreds of dead bodiesâ in Bosnia. Another tape opens with scenes of what appears to be a massacre of Serbian civilians in a village in Bosnia. The camera roves around the scene, focusing on corpses that litter the ground. Some of the bodies are being taken away on stretchers by distraught relatives. A jihad anthem plays in the background. Another tape, allegedly provided by Hamza, is a documentary in Arabic about the building of the World Trade Center in New York and the Petronas Towers in Malaysia. It was made prior to September 11. Jenvey continued to monitor Hamzaâs website. In April this year he noticed a film showing Russian soldiers being blown up by Chechnyan terrorists. The rest off the film was available through a link from Hamzaâs website. It showed training with live ammunition at a camp in Afghanistan and appears to be an exercise for would-be assassins. Some of the target images projected on to a screen are of western politicians.
| And this is from a "freelance counterintelligence investigator." If the pros don't have much more and better than this, we're all wasting our tax dollars — and we're going to lose the WOT... |
Posted by: Fred Pruitt 2003-07-21 |
