The head of Birmingham Central Mosque Mohammed Naseem has caused something of a stir in the media with his claim that there is no evidence that Muslims carried out the terrorist bomb attacks and his view that “I don’t think al-Qaeda exists”.
As was pointed out here recently Naseem has something of a habit of coming up with conspiracy theories – he was among those who suggested Mossad may have been behind September 11.
So guess who has come out and defended Naseem today?
Dr Naseem has some views that are not part of Repect’s programme. In this he is no different from Khalid Mahmood, Roger Godsiff or any other political figure whose views are not identical in every respect to those of their party.
But on the issues discussed yesterday, Dr. Naseem has spoken for millions of his fellow citizens.
This is amazing stuff. Is Respect now saying that they too believe that there is no evidence of Muslims being involved in the terrorist attacks? Are they saying that they too agree that AQ is something made up by the CIA?
Does Respect MP George Galloway believe this as well? Will any reporters ask him about this? Or is he only worth calling up when they need a tasty anti-Blair quote?
What Respect forget to say in their statement, of course, is something that might explain why they are publicly defending this nutter – the fact that Naseem was the biggest single donor to their general election campaign.
Eric Lee exposed George Galloway’s financial links to Naseem last week on his blog and it is surprising that the media have not followed up on that story.