Sufficiently Useful To Be Allowed To Operate

Vikram Dodd writes:

Some may doubt the constitutional propriety of the Queen's reported intervention in the Hamza case, but it is difficult to fault her question: why was the "preacher of hate" allowed to run free for so long? Her Majesty's questioning was shared by Muslims who had once used the Finsbury Park mosque, and felt terrorised when Hamza and his henchmen seized control of it, turning it into a place of hate.

Some will claim the long-running Hamza saga shows the extent to which human rights have got so out of hand and that they need to be "rebalanced", that is, cut. Some will claim the then Labour government was soft on Hamza because of a multicultural-inspired fear of upsetting Muslims – a claim undermined by the fact that the same Labour government took part in the widely opposed Iraq invasion, and allegedly colluded in the torture of Muslim terrorism suspects held by the Americans.

But when, as now seems as certain as anything in the saga dating back to the late 1990s, he is extradited to the US, Hamza will take some secrets with him. How could he turn a north London mosque into a place to foment violent jihad under the noses of the security services?

The police had their suspicions – local Muslims were passing information about events that struck them as extremist, and even the head of state was puzzled. At least part of the reason for not stopping him was that those who operate on Her Majesty's secret service thought he was a harmless buffoon who was also a useful source of information on other extremists. During Hamza's 2005-06 trial in the UK, it emerged that over a three-year period, the cleric had repeatedly met MI5 and special branch. A close associate of Hamza told the Guardian the cleric was an "unwitting informant" for MI5, passing on information against jihadists whose views he considered more extreme than his.

During his UK trial, Hamza said that in his many meetings with counter-terrorism officials he believed a deal operated whereby his activities would be tolerated as long as they were targeting only foreign soil. Hamza told the Old Bailey that during one meeting with officials, he asked if his fiery sermons were a problem and was told: "You have freedom of speech. You don't have anything to worry about as long as we don't see blood on the streets."

Credence for Hamza's claim comes from an unlikely source. Reda Hassaine was a former MI5 operative who infiltrated the mosque. He says Hamza was allowed to operate by the security services as long as he did not threaten Britain's national security. A senior French intelligence chief told the Guardian in 2006 that for years, Britain had failed to take action against him despite being given evidence that he had extensive involvement in terrorism, including recruiting men for terrorist training camps in Afghanistan.

Former mosque worshippers say they told police about Hamza's activities, including a meeting in the mosque to pledge allegiance to Osama bin Laden. Mufti Abdul Barkatulla, a former trustee of the mosque, says police were repeatedly asked to curb Hamza. He says that in 2000, trustees asked police to act after Hamza supporters placed a poster in the mosque advertising a meeting where loyalty could be pledged to Osama bin Laden. Barkatulla says police did nothing. "There was enough evidence for the police to do something against Hamza for years before 2003."

It appears that MI5 saw the mosque as a "honeypot", and were prepared to let Hamza operate and monitor which extremists came, and also collect Hamza's information. The mosque attracted people from north Africa, especially Algerians, who came to London after a bitter civil war in their homeland. At the time, MI5 thought that the Islamist terrorist threat to Britain was more likely posed by people from north Africa, not British-born extremists. Furthermore as Hamza radicalised youngsters, MI5's knowledge of the extremist threat was poor. Then, its expertise was in the threat posed by the Soviets and from Irish republican terrorism.

In this void, Hamza was deemed to be sufficiently useful to be allowed to operate.