 The convicted terrorist son of jailed radical Muslim preacher Abu Hamza al-Masri insisted he was “proud to be British”, in a BBC radio interview to be broadcast Tuesday. Mohammed Kamel Mostafa, 25, distanced himself from the views of his one-eyed, hook-handed father, who is appealing a seven-year prison term for inciting murder and racial hatred and battling extradition to the United States. Mostafa, who was jailed for three years in Yemen in 1999 for plotting a bombing campaign, insisted his message was one of “peace”.
| "I'm into peace and stuff. Why can't you believe me?" |
There was an outcry in Britain last month when it was revealed he had been working on the London Underground train network. He was fired immediately once his employers realised who he was. London is still on high alert after last year’s deadly suicide bomb attacks on the Underground and a bus. “To defend myself I’m just saying I’m a British citizen and I’ve got nothing against this country, this is my country and I’m proud to be British, I love my country, it’s as simple as that,” Mostafa told the BBC World Service.
| "Look how stiff my upper lip is! Wanna see me play cricket? Got any foxes you need hunted?" |
“I was just working like everybody else, struggling like a young man, trying to get some money, trying to get my head together in life.”
| "That's me. Fish and chips. An occasional pint at the pub..." |
Mostafa maintained he was innocent of plotting to sabotage economic and tourist sites in Yemen. And he said he did not agree with the controversial preaching of his father, who raised him.
| "Naow, naow! Cert'nly not, guvnor!" |
“Everybody has their own beliefs. It doesn’t mean if my dad believes something that I have to believe the same thing and that’s how I look at it,” Mostafa said. |