Bid to reopen college shut by raid where Abu Hamza once preached

JAMEAH Islameah was shut in 2007 following anti-terror raids and a failing Ofsted report but is set to reopen under the same name.

The school near Crowborough, East Sussex, is inviting children aged 11 and up to apply for boarding places costing £3,000 a year. The principal is Bilal Patel, a cleric who has owned the 54-acre site with three others since the 1990s.

At the time of the raids in 2006, which followed an MI5 surveillance operation, security sources said Jameah Islameah operated a ‘sophisticated training regime, designed to indoctrinate recruits into the extremist Islamic cause’. Abu Hamza was among those who preached there. Children were taught to sing, ‘Come, mister Taliban, come bomb England’ to the tune of the Banana Boat Song.

Fourteen men were arrested in linked operations, including Mohammed Hamid, who called himself ‘Osama Bin London’ and was jailed indefinitely after grooming young Muslims at terror training camps across Britain.

Five months after the raid the Government closed the school on Ofsted’s advice. For ten years it has lain in disrepair, occasionally being rented out for weekend study courses by Islamic groups.

But the school’s new website states: ‘We are in the process of establishing entry to students aged 11+... please contact us for more details and an application form.’

Builders are beginning restoration of the 100-room mansion. Mr Patel, who has not responded to questions, has presided over attempts to restart classes at least twice since 2007.

Yesterday a spokesman for Jameah Islameah denied the school was reopening, and said the website advertising places ‘must be a mistake’.