Jihadi bride’s father took her on protests
A MUSLIM father who mixed with hardline hate mobs then blamed police when his 15- year- old daughter joined Islamic State has admitted taking her to fiery street rallies.
Jobless Abase Hussen, 47, confessed to dragging Amira to one demonstration outside London’s Saudi Embassy when she was 13 years old.
Mr Hussen attacked Scotland Yard when she fled their home in east London two months ago and travelled with two schoolfriends to become “jihadi brides” in Syria.
Ranting
Weeks later, it emerged that he was part of a ranting Islamic mob which included Drummer Lee Rigby’s killer Michael Adebowale.
He was at the head of a 2012 march in which thugs led by firebrand preacher Anjem Choudary burned an American flag outside the US Embassy.
Speaking for the first time about his radical links, Mr Hussen denied being an extremist and claimed he was tricked into joining the flag- burning protest captured on CCTV.
Footage emerged of him shouting “Allahu Akbar” – God is great – behind a banner which said: “The followers of Mohammed will conquer America.”
But he claimed: “It was a mass protest. I had heard it was going on from mosques, so I went there, I just went by myself. I went to show my feelings because my religion was being insulted, my faith. Protesting is not radical, it is our right.”
Adebowale, the 30- year- old fanatic who is now serving life for hacking Lee Rigby to death outside Woolwich barracks two years ago, was standing nearby.
Another hardliner present at the demonstration over an obscure film which lampooned Islam, was Siddartha Dhar, a Choudary follower who also joined IS after skipping bail on terror charges.
Protesting his innocence, Mr Hussen denied wanting to be at the front of the mob, adding: “The crowd pushed me. I feel tricked. It is strange for me. I feel that I don’t know what I was doing, I did not know who they were.
“I just followed the crowd, I feel ashamed.”
Mr Hussen apologised and said he felt “terrible” about being associated with Adebowale. He added: “It was brutal, it has nothing to do with Islam, it is not human. You don’t do things like this. You do not kill people.”
He said he took his daughter to another rally – against treatment of expatriate Ethiopians in Saudi Arabia – with his wife Fetia because there was nowhere else to leave her.
“The only reason we took her the first time was because there was no one to look after her and we both felt it important to go. We wanted to try to get help for people back home, too many human rights violations there. Maybe it influenced her.”
Amira fled with Shamima Begum, 15, and Khadiza Sultana, 16, fellow pupils at Bethnal Green Academy, east London. They flew from Gatwick to Turkey, then caught a bus towards the Syrian border.
Police believe they were radicalised online by other recruits and may have been influenced by another pupil who fled to Syria last year.
IN 2012 Abase Hussen took his then 13- year- old daughter to a fiery street rally. When Amira, along with two of her friends, ran away this year to join Islamic State her father shamelessly blamed the police and her school for failing to share fears that she was being radicalised. Many took the excuses he peddled at face value. This was foolish, naïve and unhelpful.
The real driving force behind radicalisation in this country is the worryingly large number of dangerous hardline Muslims who refuse to integrate, reject our national values and associate themselves with preachers who speak supportively of jihad.