Avt030 2014 ts the muslim brotherhood aud017

RADIO 4: THE REPORT - THE MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD (EXCERPT) apprx.15-21 mins [Call to prayer] [VO] Back in Finsbury Park it’s not so long ago the democratic Islamists of the Muslim Brotherhood were seen as the solution rather than the problem. Grateful UK authorities used them to drive out violent Islamist extremists, people who backed al Qaida. It all happened just across the road from the Muslim Welfare House here at the Finsbury Park Mosque. It’s where the extremist preacher Abu Hamza would flail his hooked hands and make headlines as public enemy number one.

[ARCHIVE: ABU HAMZA] You must know the cause of Allah, and you must help that cause and fight, by fighting, and when you fight, you kill. You don’t fight just to negotiate or show off or to make videos or to make audios. Fight to kill, not fight to take(?).

[VO] Through a combination of thuggery and intimidation Abu Hamza and his followers had taken over the mosque, alienating much of the local Muslim community. Since 9/11 Finsbury Park had been regarded as a recruitment centre for jihad. On high alert, the police Special Branch needed to get Abu Hamza and his followers out. They formed the Muslim Contact Unit, brainchild of Inspector Bob Lambert. Inspector Lambert chose his ally: the Brotherhood-supporting Muslim Association of Britain.

[BL] From my point of view what was interesting was the fact they had very good relations with Islington Police, they’d already I think established a reputation for being very proactive, good citizens, willing to assist the police with difficult problems where the problems might be local drug dealing, and I found exactly the same myself. When we went to them with the problems that Abu Hamza and his hardcore supporters were causing in that neighbourhood they were immediately receptive.

[INT] They wanted Abu Hamza out as well?

[BL] They did.

[VO] Anas Altikriti was President of the Muslim Association of Britain. Effectively sponsored by the police, they drove out Abu Hamza.

[AA} Our assessment at the time was that if the Met Police were to raid the mosque, that would be something which would have extreme and wide ramifications. Despite the fact that ninety-nine percent of Muslims around Britain were totally loathing of Abu Hamza and what was calling for, but that was something that they couldn’t bear and stand by and watch. And the last thing we wanted was for Abu Hamza to gain in sympathy by that particular act, because that would always be seen by various causes of the Muslim community as something, you know, an invasion of a mosque.

Ultimately it was a mosque owned by the Muslim community, and it was only really fair and true, and right, for Muslims themselves - prevented from praying inside the mosque for years - to actually take hold of the mosque.

[VO] The Special Branch man who worked with with Anas, Inspector Bob Lambert, is now an academic at St. Andrews University, specialising in anti-extremism. After years working alongside Muslim Brotherhood groups in Finsbury Park, he arguably knows them better than anyone.

[BL] And they’re sometimes referred to as a wolf in sheep’s clothing, that the new management is in the longer run somehow more dangerous than the Abu Hamza threat that it replaced. The truth of the matter you know couldn’t be further away from these claims. Now, has anything happened in the last two to three years that I wouldn’t expect to be aware of? Of course it’s possible, but I really doubt it, and I would urge the review team to pay very close attention to what I believe to be a very positive record of active citizenship by group that have close links to the Muslim Brotherhood.

[INT] You pay a very glowing tribute to the Brotherhood basically?

[BL] I pay a glowing tribute to groups which are clearly very closely associated to the Brotherhood.

[INT] How do you know they’re not playing you?

[BL] Yes, this has often been suggested to me, and I’ve given it careful consideration, and I don’t really see any evidence to support it.

[VO] Cynics say he should know. It’s been revealed that before setting up the Muslim Contact Unit the former Inspector Lambert ran a police undercover squad infiltrating environmental and animal liberation groups. For years he and his team lived under assumed identities, even fathering children with unwitting partners as part of their cover. Lambert and that unit are now the subject of a major investigation. So as a man practised in hiding his own true identity, does he think that the Brotherhood could have been hiding theirs?

[BL] Well, I think it’s enabled me to think very deeply about it.

[INT] And what conclusions have you come to?

[BL] That I haven’t. That I haven’t been hoodwinked.

[INT] You understand that a lot of people won’t accept what you say, because of revelations about you.

[BL] Yes, I can fully understand that may well undermine my credibility.

[INT] Do you not think that people like the Muslim Brotherhood who worked with you will be looking again at communication they had with you and be thinking ‘well was this what it seemed at the time?’

[BL] No I don’t think so, I think there was no sense of either they being hoodwinked by me, or me being hoodwinked by them.

[INT] You weren’t undercover with them, of course?

[BL] No, indeed.

[INT] And they weren’t undercover with you, you believe?

[BL] I believe.