Posted on 09/21/2006 6:38:46 PM PDT by Fred Nerks
Choudary: Refuses to discuss his dissolute youth
At 39, Anjem Choudary should be a symbol of success for his peers. Born into the working-class family of a market trader in Welling on the outskirts of London, he has risen - thanks to the opportunities offered by the British education system - to become a qualified lawyer.
But it is unlikely his old school will be inviting him to be guest speaker on prize-giving day. Their former pupil is not famous for his elegant oratory in court.
Instead, the articulate Mr Choudary preaches hatred and murder in the streets of Britain to the next generation of young, impressionable Muslims.
See also...
• Police to probe anti-Pope protest
This week he stood outside Westminster Cathedral in central London to call for the execution of the Pope as punishment for 'insulting Islam'. He fulminated against Pope Benedict XVl, adding: "Whoever insults the message of Mohammed is going to be subject to capital punishment."
It's a long way from his days as a medical student at Southampton University, where, friends say, he drank, indulged in casual sex, smoked cannabis and even took LSD. He called himself 'Andy' and was famed for his ability to drink a pint of cider in a few seconds.
One former acquaintance said: "At parties, like the rest of us, he was rarely without a joint. The morning after one party, I can remember him getting all the roaches (butts) from the spliffs we had smoked the night before out of the ashtrays, cutting them up and making a new one out of the leftovers.
"He would say he was a Muslim and was proud of his Pakistani heritage, but he did-n't seem to attend any of the mosques in Southampton, and I only knew of him having white girlfriends. He certainly shared a bed with them."
On one occasion, 'Andy' and a friend took LSD together. The friend said: "We took far too much and were hallucinating for 20 hours."
The only sign of religious fervour came in flashes of anger over Salman Rushdie's The Satanic Verses. A friend from that time said: "You didn't want to get him started on that. He would go on and on about the fatwa and he supported calls for the book to be banned. But he would have a glass of cider in his hand when he was carrying on about it."
Choudary failed his first-year exams, switched from medicine to commercial law and did his final year as a law student at Guildford, from 1990 to 1991, before moving to London.
There his legal career stalled briefly and he filled in his time by teaching English as a foreign language in one of the many colleges off Oxford Street.
But eventually, he found a position with a firm of solicitors and began completing his qualifications to become a lawyer. His personal life blossomed too.
In 1996, aged 29, he married Rubana Akhtar and started a family. The couple, who settled in East London, have a daughter aged eight, and sons aged six and one.
Then he met the cleric Sheik Omar Bakri Mohammed at a mosque in Woolwich. Bakri, who is now banned from returning to Britain from Lebanon, had formed Al Muhajiroun, committed to the creation of a worldwide Islamic state, and Choudary quickly became a leading light in the group and its successor organisation, Al Ghurabaa.
He is no longer a practising solicitor and has left his wife and children to concentrate on his extreme brand of Islam. It was Choudary who organised the Danish Embassy protests over the cartoons of the prophet Mohammed earlier this year, at which demonstrators dressed as suicide bombers and banners proclaimed: 'Behead Those Who Insult Islam'.
He lauded the September 11 hijackers as 'magnificent martyrs' and praised Asif Hanif, the British suicide bomber who killed three in Tel Aviv in 2003.
After the July 7 atrocities in London, he vowed he would not tell the police if he knew a terror attack was being planned and urged Muslims to defend themselves against perceived attacks by 'whatever means they have at their disposal'.
His shocking pronouncements could be dismissed by some as the rantings of a mind clouded by religious fervour but Choudary has an audience and, at a time of increasing disaffection among young British Muslims, his activities are carefully monitored by Special Branch.
A security source said: "He is not seen as premier league because he is so conspicuous. He is seen as an irritant but with a potential to inspire impressionable youngsters to go that one stage further."
Despite his hatred of all things British - he says: "If British means adopting British values, then I don't think we can adopt British values. I'm a Muslim living in Britain. I have a British passport, but that's a travel document to me" - he and his family live on state benefits.
Rubana is said by friends to claim £1,700 a month in housing benefit and income support while Choudary has also claimed £202 a month in income support.
Yesterday, Choudary declined to talk about his past dissolute life, dismissing it as 'irrelevant'. He said: "I was born a Muslim and I have done my best to be a good Muslim all my life."
And the drugs and alcohol? "That's not really part of what's happening in the world today. Anyway, it is all fabricated. It is complete nonsense.
"My personal family situation and background is irrelevant to the situation in which we live. I can talk about politics and Islam but I don't want to talk about my personal life."
He was too busy to answer any further questions. He now belongs to a sect he refuses to name and continues to deny any direct involvement in terrorism.
In a recent interview, he said: "Do I know how to make liquid explosives? No, I'm not military-trained. I can make an omelette."
A flippant remark from one whose extremism is so laced with threats of violence.
Decent people should have nothing to do with this weasel. He should be completely ostracized. And if he has committed any crime, he should be prosecuted. I have no more tolerance for these violent, fake "holy men".
..whilst abusing the generous British welfare system!
This whole cult of Izlam is directed to convert all others or kill them. How was the quote that the Pope cited wrong? Crap, I am not even Catholic and I think he spoke what needed to be spoken.
They hate us and they hate our freedom. An insane hate that they will carry out especially if we have a government in power that coddles them. There is no dialogue with the Izlamomuzziethugs.
Bump!
Google 'muslim cleric lives on welfare' and you get 223,000 entries!
When is the British taxpayer going to realize they are all dhimmies?
I think this article exposes the bankruptcy of the British policy of letting Muslim fanatics preach terror in their mosques. Ideas have consequences.
It also reveals the stupidity of a socialist welfare state that pays for the upkeep of terrorists so they are freed from the necessity of earning a living and can work at terror full time.
"Rubana is said by friends to claim £1,700 a month in housing benefit and income support while Choudary has also claimed £202 a month in income support."
In other words, the taxpayers enable this guy, by buying him the leisure to spew out poison instead of working for his living and supporting his family.
Much the same is true in all the other European countries. Their welfare benefits and public housing subsidize the aliens who are working to destroy them.
Either he becomes a Methodist or someone drops a MOAB on his neighborhood.
An extreme Muslim cleric whose family have been living on benefits in Britain for 20 years says it would not be 'fair' to deport him. Speaking after the Prime Minister announced his clampdown, father-of-seven Sheik Omar Bakri said: "I have wives, children, sons-in-law, daughters-in-law. It would be hard on my family if I was deported." Since Syrian-born Bakri settled in Britain, he and his extended family have raked in benefits amounting to at least £300,000.
If I stood in the same place, and called for this guy's execution, would I escape prosecution?
He is, after all, a political figure.
"I call upon all good christians to KILL this MUSLIM heretic!"
"If I stood in the same place, and called for this guy's execution, would I escape prosecution?"
If you're of European descent (old Europe, not Eurabia),
you'd be under arrest in minutes. And then the full force of the multicultural state would be brought against you.
Interesting phenomenon, that. Doubleplussgood!
Charming fellow
Recently I wrote about Omar Bakri Mohammed fleeing London for Lebanon after Tony Blair announced that terrorist sympathizers were going to be kicked out of the country.
But now it seems that he’s had it so good in Britain, he’ll be back for the free medical care for his heart surgery.
He receives £331.28 a month in incapacity benefit and £183.30 a month in disability living allowance because of a leg injury he suffered in his teens.
Both payments will continue for at least six months while he is abroad, as long as he plans to return, as will the housing benefit on his home in Edmonton, north London, and his council tax benefit.
His wife, who remains in Britain with their seven children, can also continue to claim a benefits package thought to be worth at least £1,300 a month. Bakri drives a Toyota people carrier worth £30,000, paid for under a scheme called Motability.
The preacher is expected to return for an angioplasty procedure. That involves inserting and inflating a balloon in the coronary artery to improve blood flow.
And surprise, surprise, he came from a wealthy Muslim family. Thomas Friedman’s recent editorial about rich Muslim rage seems more and more relevant with each passing day.
Bakri, who comes from a wealthy, orthodox Muslim family from Syria, ran a computer business when he arrived in Britain but it collapsed.
As a teenager, he lived in Beirut. He then studied Sharia law at Damascus University before moving to Saudi Arabia.
He was deported and claimed asylum in Britain.
http://donklephant.com/2005/08/11/terrorist-sympathizer-omar-bakri-mohammed-on-the-dole/
IDIOTS!
When is this man going to be thrown out of the country? Or prosecuted? I guess this doesn't qualify as "hate speech"?
Never mind allowing him to use our system against us - I'd settle for putting a contract on him.
1 Timothy 5:8 (King James Version) But if any provide not for his own, and specially for those of his own house, he hath denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel.
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