How Djamel Beghal was used : Kouachi brothers' Mentor?

How torture is used to make "terror" connections.
http://newtrendmag.org/ntma1584.htm


[Editor's note: Imam Abu Qatada was cleared of all charges when Britain deported him to Jordan. The Jordanian court found no evidence to convict him. ]


Djamel Beghal is described by media as a "terrorist connected to the notorious Finsbury Park mosque" who regularly attended "hate preacher" Imam Abu Qatada's sermons in the late 1990s, when the mosque "was Abu Hamza's base." Once "Osama bin Laden's main European recruiter," Beghal is now being said to be the Kouachi brothers' "mentor." He is even accused by media of having recruited "shoe bomber" Richard Reid and the "20th hijacker" Zacarias Moussaoui. Beghal "is also said to have met one of Osama bin Laden's key deputies at the former Al Qaeda leader's base in Afghanistan," reports the UK Daily Mail. "The terror leader spent ten years in prison in France for planning attacks. He was only released in 2010."

Except that the truth is that he seems to actually be just a random guy that got kidnapped at the airport in Abu Dhabi in July of 2001. The Algerian immigrant to France, married to a Frenchwoman and father of four had made the decision in November of 2000 to move his family to Jalalabad, Afghanistan because they wanted to live in a Muslim country. In July 2001, Beghal was accompanying an ailing friend's family from Pakistan to Morocco, when he was inexplicably taken into custody and held for four years in pre-trial detention, during which time he was brutally tortured into falsely confessing to attacking the US Embassy in Paris. A team of doctors kept an eye on his vital signs to advise the torturers how much pain he could tolerate. They told him crazy stories over and over again.

"They wanted me to accuse Abu Qatada at any cost. They wanted me to accuse him of a military plot (bombing plan) or at least to make him responsible for the ideological and financial management of terrorist networks linking London to Kabul but also many other capitals in Europe, Africa and Asia," Beghal told Arnaud Mafille in a 2011 report by CagePrisoners entitled, "Djamel Beghal: British and French complicity in torture."

"He would insist with brutality to reveal the link between Abu Qatada and Osama bin Laden, whom they all called Abu Abdallah. He would also question me about Abu Hamza, the Egyptian Imam of Finsbury Park mosque in London... He was also interested in Sheikh Abdul Wahid. He presented him as the spiritual trainer for suicide bombers and the indoctrinator under the commandment of Osama bin Laden...

"Geographically, he interrogated me on what I knew about the projects of Muslims living mainly in London, Luton, Manchester and Leicester."

French intelligence officials had been tracking Beghal for almost a decade. He was a known activist with Takfir wal Hijra, which they defined as a splinter group from the Muslim Brotherhood.

Beghal continues, "I was offered a scenario of an attack in France without specifying the place but by citing the names of friends living in France I had never mentioned to them before... It was disturbing to hear those names from the mouth of Emirati and CIA agents. France was behind the scenes."

French Judge Brugui�re then offered a bargain to Beghal.

"He grabbed some documents, showing them to me from far, then, full of confidence, he proposed to recognize their contents, to sign them and hence to be saved immediately, as well as my wife and three children. He assured me that instead of being sentenced from 10 to 20 years, I would be sentenced to 5 years at most, and that later I would be released after two and a half years of detention.

"I asked him the content of those documents. I was shocked when he said that it acknowledged the preparation of an attack against the United States Embassy in Paris, adding that Osama bin Laden was the sponsor. It was also proclaiming my repentance and my acknowledgement that I had been misled by Al Qaeda, which would have, by the way, "sold" me to foreign secret services!"

Sylvie Beghal, wife of Djamel Beghal, insisting on his innocence, told UK human rights organization, CAGE that her husband "is being punished for something he didn't do."

"This isn't the first time Mr Beghal has been wrongfully accused. In 2005 an appeal court threw out an earlier conviction for his alleged involvement in a plot to bomb the US embassy in Paris as it had been reliant on a confession extracted under torture," reported CAGE.

"He has been placed in solitary confinement after all the false media coverage. He has nothing to do with the attack against Charlie Hebdo," said Mrs. Beghal. "The media is repeating false allegations which have been made against him for 14 years now."

Amandla Thomas-Johnson of CAGE, stated: "Djamel Beghal has never encouraged or carried out any act of violence and there is absolutely nothing that can link him to the attack. The narrative that Djamel Beghal is a 'radicalizer' is an old rumor without basis, its endless repetition causing endless problems to him and his family."

UK Terror Case against Moazzam Begg Collapses

TMO 

On October 1, 2014 the UK dropped all seven charges against Moazzam Begg, Outreach Director of the Muslim prisoner advocacy organization CAGE, due to “lack of evidence.” The judge, Mr. Justice Wilkie, then “entered a formal verdict of not guilty” and “ordered that Begg be set free immediately.”

CAGE has insisted all along that Begg’s arrest last February was politically motivated, targeting him for his work on exposing complicity between the Asad regime and illegal torture and rendition in Syria. His arrest took place the day before his research report on Syria was to be released to the public. This was the second time that a major Western country has held Moazzam Begg without trial and so serious questions must be asked about why this has been allowed to happen for a second time.

Andy Worthington wrote that “it was impossible to believe that Begg, one of the most scrutinized Muslims in the UK, would have engaged in any activities that could be construed as terrorism.” 

Begg says he suspects the explanation for his wrongful imprisonment probably embraces incompetence, Islamophobia, maliciousness and fear. “I think we will know the answer one day and it will be very embarrassing.”

The “new information” which emerged just in time for his pre-trial hearing includes the minutes of meetings that MI5 had neglected to hand over to police and prosecutors, in which Begg had explained that he was planning to visit Syria in part to investigate the agency’s involvement in kidnapping a man in Syria and bringing him to Libya for torture. MI5 told him they would not stop him.

The Crown Prosecution Services issued a statement that said: “If we had been made aware of all of this information at the time of charging, we would not have charged.”

West Midlands police officers are reportedly furious that MI5 had withheld the minutes of its meetings with Begg for so long. They said that MI5 had pressured local police to arrest him.

It has also emerged in court that not long after that meeting with MI5, Begg’s car was bugged for more than a year. Begg says it is inevitable that he will be bringing civil proceedings against MI5 and the government.

He told the Guardian he “feels cheated” by the prosecutors’ decision to abandon the case against him. “I wanted my day in court; I was spoiling for the fight. I wanted to challenge every allegation in the case against me. I believe that if I had put my case before a jury I would have been acquitted.”

Begg told the Guardian that the Belmarsh high-security prison in south London where he was detained without bail was much more pleasant than the three years he spent in Guantanamo, where he was hooded, handcuffed in stress positions, kicked in the head by US soldiers who threatened his family members with harm.

Nevertheless, he is still “bewildered” that so many British Muslims have faced arrest and imprisonment after returning from Syria. Some, he says, spent no more than a couple of weeks there, during which many were deeply disturbed by the brutality of Isis.

“People returned specifically because they did not want to be part of that … they wanted to come back,” said Begg.

“In Denmark and Germany they are not arresting returnees from Syria. We need to find another way. Not to take young men, some as young as 19, and put them away for 15 years because they made a misjudgment about the way the British government would view them.”

While in Syria, Begg helped to run a training camp in the countryside near Idlib, north-west Syria, where opponents of the regime could undergo military- style physical exercise training and acquire the rudiments of first aid. This, Begg insists, was not an act of terrorism, but an attempt to help people defend themselves against war criminals.

The charges against him involved claims that he attended a terrorist training camp in Syria “knowing or believing instruction or training was provided there for the purposes of terrorism” between October 9, 2012 and April 9, 2013 and that he possessed documents for a purpose connected to terrorism and terrorist funding.

“I was never afraid to go to court. Any right-minded person on a jury would have seen very early on that I am not the terrorist here,” he says.

Amandla Thomas-Johnson, spokesperson for CAGE, said, “Moazzam Begg and his family have suffered over the past 7 months not only because of his incarceration but also because of the financial sanctions imposed upon him, as a result of which his bank accounts (including joint accounts) were frozen or shut down. His wife was unable to pay her utility bills that were held in their joint names without receiving a license from the Treasury, and it became a criminal offense to even try and support his family with money and food during this period. Our thoughts are with his family and we share in the joy of receiving him home again.”

“We call on the CPS to review all ongoing Syria-related terrorism trials to review the evidence and drop charges. We believe many of these trials and the campaigns against Muslim charities and individuals working in Syria are politically motivated fishing expeditions using the wide scope of terror laws and Prevent policy to criminalize Muslims.”

“We also ask that the British state reviews its policies of harassment intimidation and politically motivated prosecutions of Muslims involved in the Syria crisis.”

Mirza Begg, brother of Moazzam Begg, told CAGE, “We are just so happy to have Moazzam home with us in time for Eid.”

Moazzam Begg freed: UK drops charges

Blatant Attempt to Stop Humanitarian Aid to Islamic People in Syria Fails on Legal Grounds. 

http://newtrendmag.org/ntma1570.htm


On Wednesday, October 2, 2014 Moazzam Begg was released from prison after all charges against him were dropped due to "insufficient evidence" that Begg's trips to Syria involved terrorism. Begg's lawyer, Gareth Peirce, who described her client as "a good man trying to the right thing in a very difficult world," told the Guardian that "he should never have been charged, as his activities did not amount to terrorism."

The former Guantanamo inmate had received a generous payout after suing the UK for wrongful imprisonment that enabled him to buy a house in England for his family. Begg became a tireless activist for prisoner rights and served as Outreach Director for CAGE. He was re-arrested in February by the Crown Prosecution Service the day before his report on Syria was scheduled to be released. He was being held without bail in prison, until his sudden release Wednesday.

Government prosecutor Christopher Hehir told the court, "The prosecution have recently become aware of relevant material, in the light of which, after careful and anxious consideration, the conclusion has been reached that there is no longer a realistic prospect of conviction in this case. The prosecution therefore offers no evidence." Mirza Begg, brother of Moazzam Begg said, "We are just so happy to have Moazzam home with us in time for Eid."

Andy Worthington wrote that "it was impossible to believe that Begg, one of the most scrutinized Muslims in the UK, would have engaged in any activities that could be construed as terrorism."

UK security services had already interviewed Begg before his last trip to Syria in April 2013. Knowing that he was doing research on the US torture rendition program under the Assad regime, they did not prevent him from traveling. However, his passport was taken away upon his return. It is remarkable that the British government has now admitted that they had no case against Begg and dropped the charges - especially compared to the common practice in the US of using prejudice to sway the jury to convict Muslim defendants in the absence of clear and convincing evidence.

Neither the Crown Prosecution Service nor the local police would say what "new material" had impacted the government's decision that the standard of proof had not been met. The local Muslim community and other supporters were extremely active in advocating for Begg and insisting on his innocence and his importance to human rights activism. It is probable that public pressure played a role in his release, especially at this time when the suspicion and demonization of British Muslims that have gone to Syria has increased in intensity.

Amandla Thomas-Johnson, spokesperson for CAGE expressed relief that the ordeal, which had largely paralyzed the prisoner advocacy organization, was over.

"Moazzam Begg and his family have suffered over the past 7 months not only because of his incarceration but also because of the financial sanctions imposed upon him, as a result of which his bank accounts (including joint accounts) were frozen or shut down. His wife was unable to pay her utility bills that were held in their joint names without receiving a license from the Treasury, and it became a criminal offense to even try and support his family with money and food during this period. Our thoughts are with his family and we share in the joy of receiving him home again."

"We call on the CPS to review all ongoing Syria-related terrorism trials to review the evidence and drop charges. We believe many of these trials and the campaigns against Muslim charities and individuals working in Syria are politically motivated fishing expeditions using the wide scope of terror laws and Prevent policy to criminalize Muslims. We also ask that the British state reviews its policies of harassment intimidation and politically motivated prosecutions of Muslims involved in the Syria crisis."

"Everything is terrorism and for those who fear losing their jobs and government funding, terrorism is everything. It is time to change the narrative," wrote Begg the month before his arrest.

Moazzam Begg's past articles can be found on the CAGE website. For example his interviews with British Muslims fighting in Syria and explanation of fighting groups: http://cageuk.org/article/syria-britain%E2%80%99s-new-war-teror and his Islamic explanation of Jihad. http://cageuk.org/article/jihad-and-terrorism-war-words

It remains to be seen whether Begg's written report on torture rendition involving Syrian prisons, confiscated by British police, will now be allowed to be published.