Two of the men who stabbed innocent Londoners to death in the horrific multi-pronged terrorist attack on Saturday are linked to a man believed to be safely behind bars and no longer able to incite violence — radical Muslim preacher Anjem Choudary.
Who is Choudary, and why is he still exerting influence?
Anjem Choudary, age 50, was born in England to Pakistani immigrant parents and studied medicine, dropping out after failing his initial exams, and then studied law, earning a law degree and becoming the head of the Muslim lawyers association in London. In 2002, however, he lost his license to practice and turned to preaching hate, while living off welfare.
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He took over leadership of a small group of radicals called the Al-Muhajiroun network, which has changed its name several times since being banned following the 2005 London bombing attacks.
Choudary’s preaching and his words, in television and radio appearances, were so shocking that he became a reviled figure in Europe.
He was recorded surreptitiously by the newspaper The Sun telling his followers to quit working and collect welfare on a “jihadseekers” allowance (a play on “jobseeker”). He also was heard in the same recordings saying President Barack Obama and Prime Minister David Cameron, along with the leaders of Pakistan and Egypt, should be killed.
In 2008, after the Archbishop of Canterbury said that some elements of Sharia law were “unavoidable” — that some parts of Sharia law would be coming to the U.K., the Telegraph quoted several notable Britons, most of them saying Sharia law should not be welcomed in the U.K. But Choudary, when it was his turn, said it was not possible to have just some elements of Islam.
“The question is, is he proselytizing in jail? I think the answer is almost certainly yes.”
“Sharia has been promised by the Prophet Mohammed, and it will come either by embracing Islam because it is the fastest-growing religion in the country or by an Islamic country conquering Britain or by elements embracing Islam and imposing it,” he said.
He later said that he does not recognize himself as being a citizen of Great Britain, that true followers of Islam have no republic, no country, only Sharia — and that a passport, to him, is only a travel document.
Frank Gaffney, the head of the Center for Security Policy in the U.S. and one of the top experts on Islamic terrorism in North America and Europe, says he doesn’t consider Choudary a radical. He considers him a truth-teller — telling “the unvarnished truth” about Islam.
“Choudary was an iconoclast … He was in your face,” says Gaffney, unlike the other Muslim preachers who he says are using the Muslim concept of “taqiyya,” which allows Muslims to lie to non-Muslims to hide the truth about Islam.
“Because they’re lying to us, we generally give them a pass,” says Gaffney.
Choudary has never tried to say that Islam was a religion of peace. Like other Sharia supremacists (the Muslim Brotherhood, Boko Haram, al-Qaida, ISIS, and other groups) he openly advocated the toppling of Western civilization from within and in order to install Sharia law.
The circle of believers around Choudary was small but zealous.
Two of his devotees, British-born Nigerians who’d converted to Islam from Christianity, savagely attacked British soldier Lee Rigby on a Southeast London street in broad daylight in 2013. Rigby was first struck by the pair’s vehicle, then set upon with knives.
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Countless other of his followers have left Britain to travel to Syria and other countries to join the jihad against Western-backed forces.
In 2016, Choudary and his close associate were sentenced in an English court to 5 1/2 years in prison for encouraging support for ISIS.
But it’s not likely that Choudary has fallen silent, according to Gaffney.
“The question is, is he proselytizing in jail?” asked Gaffney, “I think the answer is almost certainly yes.”
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