OSMAN: JEW HATE CAMPAIGN
Central News, Press Room, Central Criminal Court, Old Bailey, LONDON, EC4 Tel: 020 7236 0116 Pix: 020 7329 2877 Blackfriars Crown Court/ jo parkes eMail:news@centralnews.co.uk 8 September 2010 posters…1 An Egyptian man daubed anti-Semitic graffiti on posters advertising the work of Sir Alan Sugar and Steven Spielberg in a ‘one-man campaign’ against Jews, a court heard. Yacoub Osman, 53, chose Chalk Farm Tube station, used by a large number of Jewish Londoners, for his month-long spree of scrawling anti-Israel slogans and even a Nazi swastika, jurors were told. Osman used a black felt tip pen to draw a cross on the forehead of Lord Sugar, on a promotional poster for his autobiography What You See Is What You Get with a cross, it is claimed. This sensitive symbol made him a ‘marked man’, Blackfriars Crown Court heard. Roger Daniells-Smith, prosecuting, said: ‘This is a case of racially aggravated criminal damage by graffiti-ing offensive remarks against the Jews at Chalk Farm Underground Station on posters advertising various things on platforms and concourses. ‘It starts 13 November last year and goes on to 9 December. ‘So for about a month, Yacoub Osman carried out a one-man campaign against the Jews by targeting Chalk Farm Underground Station. ‘The theme is anti-Semitic, we say. He just says: ‘F**k Israel, boycott Israel.’ ‘He draws the Star of David, writes the equals sign and draws a swastika. ‘But on 27 November is when it got a little more personal. ‘There was a poster of Lord Sugar advertising his recent autobiography. ‘There was a picture on the poster. ‘It was of him as a child holding a book and a photo of him as an adult. ‘It said something like: ‘From council house to the House of Lords.’ ‘This defendant graffiti-ed across the forehead of him as a child with a cross, in effect making him a marked man. ‘Chalk Farm is on the Northern Line and Golders Green, Hampstead, and all around that area there is a huge Jewish community. ‘That is the route they would take backwards and forwards to London. ‘They use this platform and would see and we say were meant to see as offensive graffiti. ‘We say the Alan Sugar thing takes it to a new dimension and he was being personal towards Jewish people. ‘Another poster that was defaced was for a film made by Steven Spielberg, the famous Jewish film director. ‘So we say his motive was racist. ‘(The defendant) lives in Ladbroke Grove, so it was not a station he had cause to go through at all. ‘He has deliberately targeted this station as a station through which a significant number of Jews would go.’ The matter was reported to British Transport Police and they deployed undercover cops to the station. They almost caught him on December 9 but he escaped by jumping on a Tube. But he was arrested by officers who were lying in wait when he returned to the station the following day . Quizzed by police he did not answer any questions but later admitted criminal damage. However he claims his actions were politically motivated and not racist. Osman, of Portabello Road, Ladbroke Grove, west London, denies seven counts of racially aggravated criminal damage November 13 and December 9 last year. The trial continues. ends
