Corbyn embarrassed at praise from killer’s hate preacher pal
JEREMY CORBYN faced embarrassment last night after a hate preacher who heaped praise on the Labour leader was revealed as a friend of the London Bridge attacker.
Usman Khan, who killed two people in his attack, was a student and ‘personal friend’ of Anjem Choudary, it emerged yesterday.
Khan, a convicted terrorist released seven and a half years into a 16-year prison sentence for a plot to bomb the London Stock Exchange, had Choudary’s private mobile phone number on his phone at the time of his initial arrest, reports said yesterday.
On Friday, the Labour leader described the London Bridge atrocity as ‘an attack on all of us’. But to Mr Corbyn’s embarrassment, Khan’s mentor Choudary has previously praised the Labour leader.
Speaking before he was jailed in 2016 for inviting support for the Islamic State terror group, Choudary hailed Mr Corbyn as a voice for the oppressed.
He said: ‘The austerity measures, the clamping down on trade unions
and dissident voices, the oppression against the NHS... the difficulty people have in trying to meet their everyday living expenses has finally found a voice in this country.
‘I think he [Corbyn] has tapped into that. If he were to shed some of his more socialist ideas, like not bowing for the Queen, I think he could have a landslide.’
Choudary added: ‘In terms of [his support for] Hamas and the PLO [Palestinian Liberation Organisation] and the IRA, I don’t think Jeremy Corbyn has sympathy for people that call for Sharia law.
‘I believe he is someone that has always supported the underdog and that is part of his socialist ideology.’
Choudary’s outlawed jihadi group al-Muhajiroun is blamed for helping to radicalise Khuram Butt – the ringleader of the previous attack at London Bridge in 2017 – as well as Michael Adebolajo and Michael Adebowale, who murdered soldier Lee Rigby in 2013.
Last night, a spokesman for the Labour leader said: ‘Jeremy Corbyn utterly rejects Anjem Choudary and the hatred he peddles.’