http://www.gulf-times.com/site/topics/article.asp?cu_no=2&item_no=398259&version=1&template_id=37&parent_id=17
Lebanese cleric Bakri sentenced to life in prison
Publish Date: Saturday,13 November, 2010, at 12:05 PM Doha Time
AFP/Tripoli, Lebanon
I have no ties to Al Qaeda, direct or indirect, other than the fact that
I believe in the same ideology
Radical Islamic preacher Omar Bakri, who was sentenced to life in prison in
Lebanon on charges including inciting murder, said yesterday he would "not
spend one day" behind bars.
"I will not hand myself in to any court. I do not believe in the law in Britain
as in Lebanon," Bakri, who lived in Britain for 20 years, said at his home in
the northern coastal city of Tripoli a day after the verdict. "I have 15 days
to appeal the verdict," he said, adding that he would "not spend one day in
prison."
Bakri, who has praised the September 11, 2001 attacks and hailed the hijackers
as the "magnificent 19," was sentenced to life by a Lebanese military court on
Thursday.
The 50-year-old was found guilty, along with more than 40 other Lebanese,
Palestinians, Syrians and Saudis, of "incitement to murder, theft and the
possession of arms and explosives."
The charge sheet, which was posted on the door of the justice ministry, said
Bakri and 22 others were "sentenced to life in prison in absentia ... for
belonging to an armed faction with the intent to commit crimes and undermine
state authority." The remaining defendants, some of whom appeared in court,
were sentenced to terms of between three months and seven years, capping a
trial that began three years ago.
The case was opened in the aftermath of a fierce 15-week battle between the
army and an Al Qaeda-inspired Islamist group at a Palestinian refugee camp in
northern Lebanon as authorities launched a nationwide crackdown on Islamists.
Syrian-born Bakri, who holds Lebanese nationality, failed to show up in court
on Thursday for sentencing. He said he had not been formally told that the
court would issue a verdict and insisted he was innocent. It was not
immediately clear if or when he would be arrested.
Bakri also said he had called on his followers in Britain, Australia and
Pakistan to "mobilise the global media" to resort to a trial in a religious
rather than a military court, and denied that he had any ties to Al Qaeda. "I
have no ties to Al Qaeda, direct or indirect, other than the fact that I
believe in the same ideology," he said at his home in Tripoli's Abi Samra
neighbourhood, a hub for radical Islamist groups.
Bakri was banned from Britain in 2005 as part of government measures following
the London underground and bus bombings that year. He sparked outrage in
Britain in the wake of the bombings for saying he would not hand over to police
Muslims planning to launch attacks. He has also called Britain's former prime
minister John Major and Russia's former president Vladimir Putin "legitimate
targets."
Upon his arrival in Beirut in 2005, Bakri was detained but freed the next day.
No charges were pressed against him at the time. Born in 1960 to a wealthy
Syrian family, Omar Bakri began studying Islam at the age of five and at 15
joined the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood. He later abandoned the Brotherhood and
joined Lebanon's Hizb ut-Tahrir ('Party of Liberation'), a movement that aimed
to join all Islamic states under one caliphate.
He split with Hizb ut-Tahrir in 1983 and founded his own group, Al Muhajirun
('The Emigrants'), in Jeddah that year. When Bakri was expelled from Saudi
Arabia in 1986, he moved to Britain and gained a following as a preacher before
his expulsion. Al Muhajirun has also been proscribed under the UK Terrorism Act
2000. Bakri has two wives-British and Lebanese-and seven children.
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