When Muslims are arrested and investigated, we’re told by Galloway, German and co, that they are just guilty of simply being Muslim – innocent victims of a paranoid ‘war on terror’. And when some are acquitted, this is cited as further evidence of mindless state victimisation…
A case in point. In January 2002, the BBC reported that 37-year-old Faisal Mostafa and a co-defendant were charged with “plotting to cause ‘terrorist’ explosions in the UK.” Six weeks later, the Manchester Evening News reported that Mostafa had been acquitted. According to The Guardian, he “sobbed in the dock as he was acquitted”. But he was also convicted, according to the same story, to four years “for illegal possession of a pistol with intent to endanger life”.
Remarkably, this wasn’t Mostafa’s first brush with the law. “As well as being acquitted of the 2002 charges, Mostafawas cleared during an earlier trial 13 years ago of conspiring to cause explosions,” the Guardian revealed yesterday.
But yesterday, according to a Bangladesh News story – Militants’ ‘ammo factory’ busted – a terrorist training camp and arms cache masquerading as a madrassa was uncovered, and… “Faisal Mostafa, a Bangladeshi expatriate in London, has been financing the madrasa.” Upon his release he got a job community manager at the Darul Uloom Islamic High School in Sparkbrook. (Quite how a convicted felon gets a job like this is a mystery.)
But soon it appears he was back to his old tricks. Apparently he tried to take a gun onto a plane last year, was arrested and received a suspended sentence.
And despite all this, he still managed to head up a charity – the Green Crescent. From the Guardian:
A spokesman from counter-terrorism thinktank the Quilliam Foundation added: “If the Green Crescent charity has indeed been involved in militant activity, this will reflect very poorly on the Charity Commission, particularly given that Mostafa, the head of the charity, had previously been put on trial twice for terrorist offences. Ineffectiveness by the commission in identifying and tackling extremist charities leads to the British taxpayer directly subsiding militancy and extremism.”
But a Charity Commission spokesman said the reported activities said to be run under the auspices of UK charity Green Crescent Bangladesh UK raise “very serious concerns”.
ITN News say the charity received £60,000 last year. The Charity Commission says it will investigate. I wonder if it is up to the job.
His parents are protesting his innocence. So is he? Is it possible that lightning has struck this unfortunate chap four times, creating a little smoke but no fire?
