El-Faisal admitted preaching alongside controversi
El-Faisal admitted preaching alongside controversial hook-handed cleric Abu Hamza in his interviews with detectives, the jury heard.
He also told police he had been a regular visitor to the Finsbury Park Mosque which was raided earlier this month after a raid by officers from the Met’s Anti-Terrorist Branch.
In an interview on February 18 last year at Paddington Police Station, DC Ray Durrant asked the defendant: ‘Have you shared a platform with Abu Hamza?’
The Jamaican-born cleric replied: ‘Once – in Whitechapel, I gave a speech on secularism and he gave a speech about Sehabbas, which means the companion of the prophet, between 1995 and 1997.
‘
He was asked if he had ever visited Hamza’s mosque.
El-Faisal said: ‘Yes I have visited Finsbury Park Mosque, maybe once a year, just to visit people.
‘Like, if I’m in the area and the time for prayer comes, I just rush in there and make my ablutions, wash my hands and feet and pray and leave.
‘
The trial continues.
ends
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