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![]() by Staff Writers New York (AFP) April 24, 2014
The New York terror trial of British hate preacher Abu Hamza was shown Thursday a startling array of nuclear protective suits, seized along with pistols, daggers and axes from his London mosque. The stash of items impounded by British police and turned over to US authorities was loaded onto a shopping trolley and described to the 12-member jury by a British police witness. They included three ball-bearing hand guns, a wooden scythe attached to a metal chain, five daggers, two axes, a military helmet, two army flak jackets and a gas mask. There were also multiple sets of nuclear-chemical-biological protective jackets and pants in camouflage, together with a khaki-colored chemical protection suit. David Alexander, of London's Metropolitan Police, said the trove was seized from the top floor of Abu Hamza's Finsbury Park mosque in January 2003 and handed over to the Americans in 2008. In total, items numbering 22 pages were confiscated from the five-storey complex, along with mobile phones, computers, CDs, video and audio tapes, and documents written by Abu Hamza. Mustafa Kamel Mustafa, 56, better known in Britain as Abu Hamza al-Masri, pleads not guilty to 11 kidnapping and terror charges which pre-date the 9/11 Al-Qaeda attacks on the United States. Alexander read from documents that appeared to justify the killing of civilians and praised a vow from Osama bin Laden to liberate "the Holy Land" from Jews, Americans and Christians. Documents apparently written by Abu Hamza and read to the court described war against America as a "conflict between good and evil," and said "jihad will continue until the day of judgment." "Every word is like a gem," Abu Hamza allegedly wrote of bin Laden. "Every word is of extreme importance," he added, promising to translate his speech "word for word" into English. The court was also shown what appeared to be newsletters dated August 1998 and April 1999, and edited by Abu Hamza. One speech apparently by Abu Hamza was titled "Never Feel Sorry for Wicked America." - 'Exporter of violence' - The Briton faces the rest of his life in a maximum security US prison if convicted in the Manhattan federal court after a trial that is expected to last four to five weeks. He is blind in one eye and lost both arms, blown off at the elbow, in an explosion in Afghanistan years ago. He usually has a hook for a hand, though US authorities have insisted he wear a prosthetic hand instead. Dressed in a blue T-shirt and gray tracksuit bottoms, his hair closely cropped and glasses perched on his nose, Abu Hamza made copious notes and conferred with his lawyers during proceedings. The US government calls him a "global exporter of violence and terrorism" who was intent on waging war against non-Muslims. Abu Hamza's charges relate to the 1998 kidnapping in Yemen of 16 Western tourists, four of whom were killed, and conspiracy to set up an Al-Qaeda-style training camp in Oregon in late 1999. He is also accused of providing material support to Al-Qaeda, of wanting to set up a computer lab for the Taliban and of sending recruits for terror training in Afghanistan. Abu Hamza was first indicted in the United States in 2004 and served eight years in prison in Britain before losing his last appeal in the European Court of Human Rights against extradition. It is the second high-profile terror trial heard in a Manhattan court after Osama bin Laden's son-in-law, former Al-Qaeda spokesman Suleiman Abu Ghaith, was convicted on March 26.
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