A man accused of leading a radical Islamist group which has been linked with the Madrid and Casablanca bombings came forward yesterday to distance himself from the atrocities and say he was the victim of a smear campaign.
In an interview with the Guardian, Mohammed al-Gerbouzi confirmed that he was suspected of being involved in a radical organisation known as the Group of Islamic Combatants of Morocco. He admitted that he had been questioned several times by the Moroccan secret services and MI5, and said he believed he had been given a 20-year jail sentence in his absence in Morocco in connection with last year's suicide attacks in Casablanca.
| "I think it was me. I think it was 20 years. I sure ain't goin' back to make sure!" |
Mr Gerbouzi was born in Morocco but has lived in London since 1974. He accepts that his visits to Pakistan and Turkey had raised suspicion, and described himself as an outspoken critic of the Moroccan government. But he dismissed supposed links to radical groups as "complete nonsense".
"The British and Moroccan authorities know where I live and have my telephone numbers. I'm not hiding away in a forest. If they have proof they must come forward and present it."
| "And then I'll bitch and moan and have somebody blow something up." |
Since the Casablanca attacks in last May, which killed 44 people, Mr Gerbouzi's name has been linked to the GIC, one of a number of amorphous Moroccan radical groups. Some media reports have said that he trained in terrorist camps in Afghanistan, that he visited Turkey shortly before the Casablanca attacks, and that he may have given the order for the suicide bombings to go ahead.
| What was that address again? |
He is also said to have been a student of Abu Qatada, the influential radical preacher suspected of being a key al-Qaida leader in Europe, and of meeting Abu Dahdah, the Syrian cleric arrested in Spain after the September 11 attacks. After the Madrid bombings and the arrests of a number of Moroccans, Mr Gerbouzi's name surfaced again. A father-of-six who lives in a flat in north London, he told the Guardian that he had followed his father, a hotelier, to Britain from Larache, a coastal town not far from Tangiers, in 1974, and became a British citizen in the mid-nineties. He said that he had discovered he was a marked man in the late eighties when he went to the Moroccan embassy in London to apply for documents for his family. A friendly official tipped him off that there was a file which painted him as an opponent of the Moroccan government. Mr Gerbouzi, 44, who describes himself as a trader, admitted that he had spoken out about the regime and in recent years he has organised demonstrations outside the embassy. Soon after learning about the file, he says, he had a row with a Moroccan official in London. he claimed that the man told him he would get even with him when he next visited Morocco. He said: "I used to go to Morocco every summer. From that time I didn't go. I was scared. Morocco was finished for me."
| "'cept for plantin' bombs, ya know." |
Mr Gerbouzi, who has four brothers and three sisters, all living in Britain, claims his reputation grew from then. He says his family were harassed when they travelled to Morocco. One of his brothers, who asked not to be named, told the Guardian that when he visited Morocco two years ago he was whisked to a hotel by eight secret servicemen. He said: "Most of the questions were about my brother. They wanted me to bring him to Morocco. I asked them: 'Why don't you go to London and talk to him yourselves?' It was very intimidating."
| al)Guardian just sucks this stuff up, don't they? I guess, having to get a paper out every day and such, they can't really get any indication whether the statements are smoke or for real... |
Four months before the attacks in Casablanca Mr Gerbouzi was approached by two men in Shepherd's Bush. One was from the Moroccan secret service; the other, who introduced himself as my cousin "Steve", purported to be from MI5. The three men talked in a nearby internet cafe. According to Mr Gerbouzi the Moroccan agent said: "Many people are talking about you." He said they were saying he had visited Pakistan and Afghanistan.
| Notice how the Army of Steve™ was on to this guy early. |
Mr Gerbouzi accepts that he has visited Pakistan - to help deliver aid. He denies having been in Afghanistan.
| What, they didn't need aid? |
| The old NGO story again... |
The agent began putting the names of radical Islamist groups to Mr Gerbouzi and asked him about people detained in Guantánamo Bay. The man also allegedly suggested that had he facilitated the passage of Islamist terrorists through London. "I said to him: 'You have come from Morocco and are just putting all these names to me. Where is the evidence, the proof?'"
| "Yez got nuttin' on me, coppers! Nuttin'!" |
Mr Gerbouzi said he met the man and a second MI5 officer next day in a hotel in Paddington. Several weeks later he was in Golborne Road, west London, an area with a large Moroccan community, when he encountered the Moroccan agent again. This time it was put to him that he had visited the Sudan, which he says he had not.
Shortly before the Casablanca attack, Mr Gerbouzi was in Turkey. He said: "I have been accused of raising £40m for al-Qaida, and while there gave the green light for the attack on Casablanca. "In fact I have family in Istanbul, I stayed there for two weeks and traded in clothes. That's what I do." Mr Gerbouzi said he was "shocked" when his name was linked to the Casablanca attacks and subsequently to the Madrid bombings.
| But not so shocked as to voluntarily turn himself into the Spanish police. |
He said he had not been spoken to by security agents or the police since the Spanish attacks, and had not been officially informed that he had been sentenced to 20 years in connection with the bomb in Casablanca. And contrary to reports in some British papers, he said, he did not go into hiding after the Madrid killings. "I continued to take my children to school and attend the mosque. I'm here talking to you. I have nothing to hide."
| My Guilt-o-Meter's hanging right on 9.8... |
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