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Abdullah el-Faisal (born Trevor William Forest, also known as Sheikh Faisal and Sheik Faisal, circa 1963–64) in Saint James Parish, Jamaica, is a radical Muslim cleric who preached in the United Kingdom until he was convicted of stirring up racial hatred and urging his followers to murder Jews, Hindus, and Americans. He was sentenced to nine years in prison, of which he served four years before being deported to Jamaica in 2007. He was most recently reported to be in Africa.

Early life

El-Faisal was born to an evangelical Christian family who belonged to the Salvation Army church, a denomination of the Universal Christian Church. At age 16, he converted to Islam, after being introduced to the religion by a high school teacher. He left Jamaica in 1983 for Guyana where he studied Arabic, then traveled to the UK in the 1980s. El-Faisal studied Islam in Saudi Arabia for seven years at the Imam Mohammed Ibn Saud Mohammed University.

England: 1992–2003

El-Faisal returned to the United Kingdom in 1992, married a British biology graduate, Zubeida Khan, and began preaching to crowds of up to 500 people at the Brixton Mosque. Referred to as "Sheikh" by his followers, el-Faisal lectured in mosques in Birmingham, London, and Dewsbury in West Yorkshire and elsewhere in the United Kingdom. The lectures were taped and sold at specialist bookshops. El-Faisal also lectured in Nigeria.

El-Faisal was associated with the Brixton Mosque in South London, but was ousted by its Salafi administration in 1993. Afterward, he gave a lecture he called The Devil's Deception of the Saudi Salafis, scorning the Salafi Muslims, (especially the members of the Brixton Mosque), calling them hypocrites and apostates (takfir).According to his own testimony, he left the Brixton area in 1993. In a lecture in the late 1990s entitled The Devil's Deception of the 21st Century House Niggers he declares the African-American Salafi preacher Abu Usamah an apostate, and calls for his assassination. He also called on Muslim mothers to raise their children to be jihad soldiers by the age of 15.

El-Faisal is an associate of Abu Hamza al-Masri, the Egyptian ousted from the Finsbury Park mosque who is known for preaching against non-Muslims who is currently incarcerated in the United Kingdom for various offenses. El Faisal is reportedly a former supporter of Osama bin Laden, and has been linked to al-Qaeda members.

Conviction and imprisonment: 2003–07

After a four-week trial at the Old Bailey in 2003, el-Faisal was found guilty by a jury of six men and six women in February 2003 of three charges of soliciting the murder of Jews, Americans, and Hindus, and two charges of using threatening words to stir up racial hatred in English- and Arabic-language tapes of speeches to his followers. The prior December, a poll indicated that 8 per cent of the British Muslims it sampled would support terrorist acts against England. He was the first person in more than a century to be convicted under Britain's 1861 Offences Against the Person Act.

His taped lectures formed the basis of the prosecution case against him. "Jews," Faisal said, "should be killed ... as by Hitler." He encouraged the use of chemical weapons to "exterminate non-believers" and exhorted Muslim women to buy toy guns for their children to train them for jihad. He also suggested that nuclear power stations could be fueled with the bodies of Hindus, slaughtered for their "oppression" of Muslims in Kashmir.

On one tape, titled "Jihad", he said: "So you go to India and if you see a Hindu walking down the road you are allowed to kill him and take his money, is that clear?" In a tape called "Rules of Jihad", thought to have been made before the 9/11 attacks, he said: "You have to learn how to shoot. You have to learn how to fly planes, drive tanks and you have to learn how to load your guns and to use missiles. You are only allowed to use nuclear weapons in that country which is 100% unbelievers." Testimony was presented to the effect that el-Faisal tried to recruit British schoolboys for terrorist training camps, promising them "seventy-two virgins in paradise" if they died fighting a holy war. On a tape called "Them Versus Us" he said: "There are two religions in the world today - the right one and the wrong one. Islam versus the rest of the world." On another tape he said: "People with British passports, if you fly into Israel, it is easy. Fly into Israel and do whatever you can. If you die, you are up in paradise. How do you fight a Jew? You kill a Jew. In the case of Hindus, by bombing their businesses."

During the trial he denied he had intended to incite people to violence, and testified that he had held Osama Bin Laden in "great respect," but that Bin Laden had "lost the path" since 11 September.

Old Bailey judge Peter Beaumont delivered the sentence. He said el-Faisal had "fanned the flames of hostility", and told el-Faisal: "As the jury found, you not only preached hate, but the words you uttered in those meetings were recorded to reach a wider audience. You urged those who listened and watched to kill those who did not share your faith."

El-Faisal was sentenced to nine years, of which he served four years. He received seven years for soliciting murder, 12 months to run concurrently for using threatening and insulting words, and a further two years (to run consecutively) for using threatening and insulting recordings. The judge suggested that he serve at least half his sentence, and then be deported. In February 2004 he lost an appeal of his conviction.

Followers: 9/11 plotter, Richard Reid, 7/7 and Flight 253 bombers

Prosecutors said he preached to shoe bomber Richard Reid and 9/11 plotter Zacarias Moussaoui.

Two of the four accused 2005 7/7 suicide bombers, Mohammad Sidique Khan, responsible for the Edgeware Road blast that killed 6 people, and Jamaican-born Briton Germaine Lindsay, responsible for the blast that killed 26 people at King's Cross tube station, were followers of El-Faisal. In an interview with the BBC in June 2008, he admitted knowing Germaine Lindsay but insisted he had not radicalized him.

In a May 2005 online posting under the name “farouk1986,” Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the suspected Christmas Day 2009 Flight 253 bomber, referred to El-Faisal, writing: “i thought once they are arrested, no one hears about them for life and the keys to their prison wards are thrown away. That’s what I heard sheikh faisal of UK say (he has also been arrested i heard).”

Parole, deportation, and Africa: May 2007–present

His sentence was reduced to seven years on appeal.

Upon being eligible for parole, el-Faisal was released from prison and deported and permanently banned from the UK on May 25, 2007. In June 2008 he was preaching in South Africa.

He remains on an international watch list, and has apparently been living in Africa. He reportedly traveled through Angola, Malawi, Swaziland, Mozambique, and Tanzania by road before entering Kenya.

El-Faisal was allowed entry to Kenya from Tanzania on 24 December 2009, due to a computer error. El-Faisal was arrested in Kenya on New Year's Eve 2009 by anti-terror police as he was leaving a mosque in the town of Mombasa. Authorities said they arrested him because he breached the terms of his tourist visa, which did not allow him to preach. The immigration minster of Kenya said the government would soon deport him.

On January 5, 2010, The New York Times reported that he was stuck in Kenya despite attempts to deport him because of his history of being involved in terrorist activities, because other countries were refusing to allow him to transit through them. Jamaica had said it would accept him, and keep a close eye on him, but South Africa, the U.K., and Tanzania all declined to issue him transit visas that would allow him to connect to flights to Jamaica.

He was deported on January 7, 2010, to the West African nation of Gambia, which accepted him, at his request.

References

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External links

• Official Website of Sheikh Faisal's North American Representatives
• "Royal Court of Justice - Judgment on Appeal of Abdullah el-Faisal"; March 4, 2004
• "Interview with 'hate' preacher," BBC, June 20, 2008
• "The Devil's Deception of Abdullaah Faisal ('Sheikh Faisal'); Critical Study of Abdullah el-Faisal's Methodology"; SalafiManhaj (2007)
• "A Study of the Tafseer of 'Abdullaah ibn 'Abaas "kufr doona kufr'"; Critique of Abdullah el-Faisal"; SalafiManhaj (2008)

• Living people
• Converts to Islam
• Jamaican Islamists
• People convicted on terrorism charges
• People deported from the United Kingdom