Profiles of British extremists

Abu Qatada Al Filistini

Omar Mahmoud Mohammad Othman — or Abu Qatada — was born in Bethlehem in 1960. After the 1967 Arab-Israeli War, his family fled to Ras Al Ain in Jordan, where he spent the rest of his childhood. He went to Pakistan to teach children in the camps in Peshawar for Afghan refugees. In 1993 he travelled to Britain, and was granted refugee status in 1994. In 1999 a Jordanian court sentenced him in absentia to life for involvement in two plots. A long extradition battle ensued, and he was extradited to Jordan in 2013. In 2014, upon retrial, he was cleared of involvement and released from prison.

 

 

Anjem Choudhary

Without a doubt the most well-spoken of all British extremists, Anjem Choudhary was born in the UK in 1967, and qualified as a lawyer. He has given multiple interviews to numerous TV stations, espousing extremists views. A close confidant of Omar Bakri Mohammad and Abu Hamza Al Masri, he was a leading member of Al Muhajiroun. He was a vocal supporter of Daesh’s so-called caliphate. Currently, he is serving a jail-term in the UK.

Hani Al Sibai

Born in Egypt in 1961, Hani Al Sibai worked as a lawyer for the Muslim Brotherhood. He sought asylum in the UK in 1994, but his request was denied on national security grounds. However, due to complicated legal reasons, he was given permission to temporarily stay in the UK. He appeared frequently on Al Jazeera, and has adopted many extremist positions in the past, like voicing support for the 7/7 London attacks. He remains in London.

Abdullah Al Faisal

William Trevor Forest, born in Jamaica in 1963 to an evangelical Christian family, converted to Islam in his mid-teens and took the name Abdullah Al Faisal. After travelling to the UK in 1992, he started preaching at a Salafist mosque. He was sentenced to seven years in prison in 2003 for soliciting murder and for incitement.

Abu Hamza Al Masri

Currently serving two life terms in the US, Abu Hamza Al Masri is, for many, the face of the extremist problem in the UK. He came to the UK from Egypt in 1979, and trained as an engineer. He spent time in Afghanistan, and lost both hands and an eye in an explosion. In 1997, he took over as the imam of the Finsbury Park mosque in London, which became known as an extremist hub.

Omar Bakri Mohammad

Omar Bakri Mohammad was born in Aleppo to a wealthy family, and joined the Muslim Brotherhood in Syria before eventually making his way to the UK in 1986. He built up Al Muhajiroun, and was Abu Hamza’s associate in the Finsbury Park mosque. He has praised the 9/11 attackers in the past, and two of his sons died fighting in Syria. He is currently serving a prison sentence in Lebanon.