Jan. 20, 2003 - Police find guns, passports in London mosque (UPDATE)
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
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London Metropolitan Police have announced that two guns and a number of passports were found in the Finsbury Park mosque which police raided early Monday morning, reports Ynet (the Internet Yediot Ahronot).
Anti-terrorist police raided a north London mosque suspected of being a center of Islamic radicalism Monday and arrested seven suspects in an operation linked to the recent discovery of the deadly poison ricin.
Armed with battering rams, dozens of officers stormed Finsbury Park mosque and two neighboring houses in the early hours of the morning as helicopters circled overhead, shining bright lights on the buildings.
The mosque, and radical cleric Abu Hamza al-Masri who preaches there, have been under police surveillance for months. Officials say the center is a fertile recruiting ground for fundamentalist groups. According to reports, Richard Reid, the man convicted of trying to destroy a trans-Atlantic flight in 2001 with explosives in his shoes, worshipped there.
Al-Masri, who is wanted in Yemen on terrorism charges, was not arrested in the sweep and quickly condemned the raid as an anti-Muslim propaganda exercise by the government.
Deputy Assistant Commissioner Andy Trotter said police did not find any ricin during the raid, though the operation was linked to the Jan. 5 arrest of four North African men who had the deadly poison in their London apartment .
"There is a national operation against terrorists in this country ... that led us to this mosque," Trotter said.
"This is part of our absolutely determined effort to keep the country safe and pursue terrorist suspects wherever they may be."
Six of the suspects were North Africans, aged between 23-48, while the seventh was a 22-year-old Eastern European, he said. They were taken to a London police station to be questioned.
Trotter added that searches were continuing at the mosque, officially known as the North London Central Mosque, and were focusing on computers and documents, some of which had been seized.
Jerry Scanland, landlord of the Auld Triangle pub on the same street as the mosque, said the raid began shortly after 2 a.m.
"There was a big police presence, around 150 police," he said. "I saw police in riot gear leave the mosque carrying ladders and battering rams."
Al-Masri, an Egyptian-born cleric who fought the Soviets in Afghanistan and whose group calls for the spread of Islamic law, denied his mosque was linked to terrorism. He told The Associated Press by telephone that the raid was "propaganda to gain support for war against terrorism."
"There was no reason to raid the mosque. It's open. They have surveillance on it, the cameras and everything. It's just a propaganda," he added.
The US Treasury Department alleges that al-Masri belongs to the group that claimed responsibility for the 2000 attack on the USS Cole in Yemen, and has frozen his funds. The cleric denies any involvement in violence and says he is only a spokesman for political causes.
Trotter said al-Masri "had nothing to do with this particular raid."
Home Secretary David Blunkett praised Monday's operation.
"We must take firm action to investigate, and if necessary deal with, any potential threat to public safety without fear or favor," Blunkett said in a statement.
The raid is the latest in a series of police operations connected with ricin, one of the world's deadliest toxins which has been linked in the past to Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida terror network and Iraq.
Four North African men were charged Jan. 13 with chemical weapons and terrorism offenses after traces of the poison were found in a north London apartment on Jan. 5.
In another ricin-linked raid, police on Jan. 15 arrested three North African men in the northern city of Manchester.
One of those, Kamel Bourgass, 27, appeared in court on Friday, charged with the murder of a police officer that was stabbed during the raid. A second man, Libyan Khalid Alwerfeli, 29, appeared in court on Monday charged with possession of articles and documents or records for terrorist purposes. He was remanded in custody for a week.
Britain's charity watchdog has ordered al-Masri to give up his pulpit at the Finsbury Park mosque because of his "inflammatory and highly political" speeches. Al-Masri has appealed against the order. |
