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Abu Qatada with Yasser Al-Sirri pictured walking the street |
how Abu Qatada is free to walk the streets with car bomb extremist.
Daily Mail
One of the world's most dangerous Islamic extremists is free to walk the streets with a convicted terrorist because of a Home Office blunder, it was claimed on Monday night.
Last Saturday, the Daily Mail pictured Abu Qatada - dubbed Osama Bin Laden's 'ambassador in Europe' - walking side by side with a friend who was talking on a mobile phone.
Now it has emerged the friend - who was apparently relaying messages from the firebrand cleric - is Yasser Al-Sirri, a former member of Egypt's Islamic Jihad group.
He was convicted in Egypt and sentenced to death in absentia for his part in a 1993 car bomb attack, but has since claimed asylum in Britain.
Experts said the revelation raised huge doubts about the Government's tactics for keeping the public safe from terrorism.
Qatada's release from custody was ordered this year on the grounds that deportation to his native Jordan would breach his human rights.
But security officials were supposed to have placed him under the strictest possible bail conditions.
These include a 22-hour curfew, a ban on making calls from mobile phones as well as a bar on associating with around 20 named Islamic extremists - including Bin Laden.
Amazingly, however, it has emerged that Al-Sirri, 46, is not on the list of banned associates drawn up by the Home Office and security services.
The Centre for Social Cohesion, an arm of the Civitas think-tank which identified Al-Sirri from the Mail's photograph, said on Monday night: 'Although al-Sirri has never been convicted in a UK court there is ample evidence to suggest that he has been involved in radical Islamic movements since at least the early 1990s.
'During this time he has been closely associated with leading extremists both in the UK and abroad.
'That Abu Qatada is allowed to freely meet with such an individual - and to apparently use him to pass on messages - indicates serious flaws in Qatada's bail conditions.'
Born in Suez in 1962, Al-Sirri became involved in radical Islamic politics in the 1980s, joining a group violently opposed to the Egyptian government called Islamic Jihad.
In 1993, Islamic Jihad atttempted to assassinate the then Egyptian prime minister using a car bomb outside a girl's school.
The attack failed but a 12-year-old girl was killed in the blast.
Last Saturday's Daily Mail pictured the pair walking side by side
Al-Sirri had left Egypt the previous year and claimed he had no direct role in the attack. To evade the Egyptian authorities - and the gallows - he arrived in the UK as an asylum seeker with a false passport in 1994.
He then began claiming benefits and was given a council flat in Maida Vale, West London.
Egypt has repeatedly called for his extradition but Britain has refused.
In October 2001, Al-Sirri was charged with conspiring to murder Ahmed Shah Massoud, the Afghan leader killed by two suicide bombers days before the 9/11 atttacks.
He was cleared at the Old Bailey May 2002.
The company al-Sirri has kept in the UK reportedly includes many Islamic extremists, including Hamza, Al Qaeda's military commander Mohammed Atef, and the preacher of hate Omar Bakri.
Last night a Home Office spokesman said: 'The Government's priority is to protect public safety and national security.
We will ensure necessary steps are taken to ensure the safety of the public, making use of all the powers available to us and the police.'