'Osama bin London' Jailed For Terror Training

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From 'AFP': An extremist who dubbed himself "Osama bin London" was jailed on Friday along with the fellow ringleader of a cell which organised training camps in Britain for would-be jihadis. A judge at Woolwich Crown Court -- where a jury convicted the men last month -- gave Mohammed Hamid, 50, an indefinite prison sentence and recommended he serve at least seven and a half years before being considered for parole. Fellow leader Atilla Ahmet -- a former spokesman for the extremist Muslim cleric Abu Hamza Al-Masri -- was jailed for six years and 11 months for grooming young Muslims to carry out attacks. "The purpose was to go abroad to commit offences but was no less serious for that. Somebody killed by a terrorist act is as serious if it is committed abroad as here," said judge Christopher Pitchers.

Hamid's followers included four of the men convicted of being involved in failed suicide bomb attacks on the London public transport system on July 21, 2005. The judge said Hamid -- described during the trial as a "recruiter, groomer and corrupter of young Muslims" -- would continue to be a danger to the public due to his ability to persuade others to turn to violence. He was found guilty of organising terrorist training in the New Forest in southern England and at a paintballing centre in the county of Berkshire, west of London, as well as of soliciting murder. Ahmet admitted three charges of soliciting murder in September last year, a month before Hamid's trial began at the high security court in southeast London.

The court heard that Hamid wanted to send recruits for training in Afghanistan and east Africa and boasted that his name was "Osama bin London", a play on the name of the Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden. The court also heard that Hamid was arrested in October 2004 at a stall in London's Oxford Street shopping district with the ringleader of the failed 2005 suicide bomb attacks, Muktar Said Ibrahim. Security services had begun investigating Hamid after the July 7, 2005 attacks, when four Islamist extremist suicide bombers killed themselves and 52 others on London's public transport system. Three other men -- Kibley da Costa, 25; Mohammed Al-Figari, 45; and 20-year-old Kader Ahmed, 20 -- were found guilty of attending the training camps in southern and northwest England and of other terrorist offences.