Ringleader joined hate cleric’s demo
THE day after the murder of Fusilier Lee Rigby in May 2013, Khuram Butt joined notorious hate preacher Anjem Choudary on College Green outside the Palace of Westminster in support of the attack.
There, Butt ‘verbally assaulted’ a moderate Muslim leader who had opposed Choudary’s extremist rhetoric. Mohammed Shafiq, the head of Ramadhan Foundation, a Manchester-based group which works to build better relationships between communities, said he was called a ‘murtad’ – traitor – by Butt. He added that the London Bridge attacker had also labelled him a government stooge.
Fusilier Rigby was attacked by two jihadists who used a car and knives to kill the off-duty soldier as he walked down a road close to the Royal Artillery barracks in Woolwich, South East London.
Choudary, who had led the banned group al-Muhajiroun, controversially remarked that one of the killers, Michael Adebolajo, was ‘a practising Muslim and a family man’ who he was ‘proud of’.
It later emerged that Adebolajo had been a supporter of Choudary and al-Muhajiroun as far back as 2007, when he was spotted at a rally with the hate preacher.
The confrontation between Butt and Mr Shafiq was only brought to an end when police intervened.
Mr Shafiq said: ‘Khuram Butt called me a “murtad” which means traitor in Arabic and accused me of being a government stooge when I confronted Anjem Choudary about him supporting terrorism and my public campaign against Lee Rigby’s murder. The police turned up and Anjem, Khuram Butt and two other men were escorted away and I stayed in College Green.
‘It is clear that Anjem Choudary and his band of terrorist sympathisers were known to the police for many years. Many of us in the British Muslim community have been demanding action against these extremists to no avail.’
Mr Shafiq said he was ‘not surprised’ that Butt went on to carry out last weekend’s atrocity and argued that there were ‘serious questions’ for the authorities.
Choudary was jailed for fiveand-a-half years last August after two decades spent preaching hate. He is believed to have inspired at least 110 Britons to commit terrorist acts.
After Khalid Masood’s attack on Westminster bridge in March it emerged that Choudary had made numerous visits to Luton to spread hate at the same time that Masood had been living in the area.