Hate cleric Hamza’s son is stripped of passport
22-year-old travelled to fight against Assad in Syria
THE son of hook-handed hate preacher Abu Hamza has been stripped of his British passport after travelling to Syria.
Sufiyan Mustafa, 22, said the decision had been made after he went to fight with rebels in 2013, after his father was extradited to the US on terror charges.
He denied fighting alongside Islamic State or forces loyal to Al Qaeda, and said he was ‘surprised’ that his passport was revoked.
In an interview with Arabic newspaper Al Quds, Mustafa said he wanted to return to Britain once Syrian president Bashar Al Assad’s regime had fallen, and denied he posed a threat to national security.
He claimed he was fighting with a moderate group opposed to the Assad regime and which was supported with British and US weapons. He said: ‘ Britain is the place where I was born and lived. I have never been a threat to national security in Britain and will not commit aggression on its population because our religion does not allow attacks on unarmed innocents.’
Mustafa, the youngest son of former Finsbury Park mosque imam Hamza, said his father had made mistakes but appeared to defend him, saying: ‘ Who hasn’t when they believe in a cause?’ Hamza, 58, is serving a life sentence in the US after he was convicted of terrorism charges. The Egyptian-born extremist helped organise the hostage-taking of 16 tourists in Yemen in 1998. Three Britons and an Australian were killed in a rescue attempt.
He set up a terror training camp in Oregon which sent volunteers and money to Afghanistan to help Al Qaeda and the Taliban, and he spoke out in support of Osama Bin Laden following the September 11 attacks in 2001. He was convicted of 11 terrorism offences in 2015 and is serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole at a high security prison known as the ‘Alcatraz of the Rockies’ in Florence, Colorado. Mustafa, the fifth of Hamza’s eight children, was said to have taken part in battles in the Syrian city of Aleppo and is one of an estimated 400 British nationals fight- ing in Syria and Iraq. He appeared in a pro-rebel propaganda video in which he denounced the Assad regime but was also critical of IS and Al Qaeda.
He said Islamic State, also known as Isis, had carried out atrocities and had damaged the reputation of Muslims.
In the video, he said: ‘There is no solution to the Syrian situation while Assad is in power … if you want to help then shine a light on the atrocities carried out by Bashar Assad, the Russians and Isis.
‘It is very unfair for the West to judge Muslims by the actions of Al Qaeda, Isis or Hezbollah. If that is fair then all Muslims have the right to view all Christians as crusaders or Americans as Charles Manson.’
In the Al Quds interview, he said: ‘I am a believer that the real battle will be after the fall of the regime, in the construction of Syria again and reform of the political and economic affairs and construction of public schools to study.
‘The victory of the revolution will be when we see the people elect a representative government and take the country to a better future than it was.’ The Home Office refused to comment.