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[yialousa1971]

A man described as a suspected terrorist sympathiser closely linked to the July 7 bombers has worked for Scotland Yard and a string of councils to run training courses about "engaging" Muslim youths.

By Rachel Williams and David Barrett 9:00PM BST 07 May 2011




Tafazal Mohammad was described as an "individual of interest" by MI5 in 2001 when he attended a training camp with the bombings' ringleader, Mohammed Sidique Khan.


Despite a host of links with the suicide attackers, Mohammad now promotes himself as a "professionally qualified youth and community worker" and has been paid thousands of pounds by organisations including the Metropolitan Police and Chester University.


His company, Muslim Youth Skills, charges up to £115 a head for its courses to "engage and empower hard-to-reach and marginalised groups".


The Bradford-based firm says its courses, many of which are led by Mohammad, are designed for police community support officers, social workers, advisers from the government-run Connexions service for teenagers and youth workers.


Mohammad's employment by the Metropolitan Police and other public bodies will now raise serious questions about how experts are vetted.



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Mohammad, known as "Taf", has never been accused of any terrorist offence but his close links with the bombers were repeatedly highlighted in the July 7 inquest, which on Friday concluded that the terrorists unlawfully killed 52 innocent people in London in 2005.

The 45-year-old was a trustee of a jihadist bookshop along with Khan, who bombed the Edgware Road train killing six, and Shehzad Tanweer, who murdered seven in the Aldgate explosion.

The coroner described him as a "suspected terrorist sympathiser" and said the bookshop was a haunt of "men with extremist views".

Mohammad's website says he is an expert on "faith, culture and responses to work with young Muslims post 7/7" but it makes no mention of his close personal links with the murderers themselves.

Scotland Yard said he was hired as part of a "strategy" which did not require officers to "routinely carry out background checks".

Mohammad's links to the July 7 attacks were detailed at length in the inquest into the bombings.

He and Khan were kept under surveillance by MI5 and West Yorkshire Police during a 2001 "training camp organised by known extremists", according to Lady Justice Hallett, the coroner, who said that at that stage Mohammad was viewed by the security services as a "suspected terrorist sympathiser".

A surveillance operation observed 40 men on the expedition at Dalehead in Dudden Valley, Cumbria. The inquest highlighted how the security services failed to identify key plotters who went on to perpetrate the 7/7 atrocity.

Mohammad was linked with Islamic convert Martin McDaid, a former special forces soldier, who had been suspected of being an extremist by the security services since 1998.

MI5's chief of staff, known only as "Witness G", told the inquest that the 2001 operation identified suspects including Mohammad, McDaid and James McLintock - a Scottish convert to radical Islam known as the "Tartan Taliban" - and said the checks led to Mohammad becoming "an individual of interest".

Khan gave Mohammad's name as a referee when he applied for a job, the inquest heard, and Mohammad's Renault Espace was seen by surveillance officers at another training session attended by the ringleader in 2003.

Mohammad oversaw the Iqra bookshop in Beeston, Leeds in 2003 and 2004. After the bombings, it was exposed as an incubating chamber for extremist Muslim views and this year a Charity Commission report found the shop, which was a registered charity, had been "mismanaged" in 2004 by the trustees who included Mohammad.

A police investigation had discovered "political, biased, propagandist or otherwise inappropriate" material on the premises, said the report.

The coroner's report said that the police "have never recovered any material which tends to suggest the Iqra bookshop was a base for unlawful activity as opposed to somewhere that was visited by men with extremist views".

Despite the links Mohammad became a prominent figure after the bombings.

He attended a seminar in the House of Commons, speaking on the theme of "engagement with Muslim youth and communities", which was chaired by Paul Goodman, then an MP and Conservative shadow minister, and Lord Patel of Blackburn, a Labour peer, in 2008.

Muslim Youth Skills' website claims that its other customers have included a number of local authorities and the Government Office for London, which was abolished earlier this year.

A Scotland Yard spokesman about 20 police officers and staff attended a course held by Muslim Youth Skills in June last year at a cost of £1,840.

"The intention of the course, which was aimed at engagement workers, was to help improve understanding and relations with young Muslim people," the police spokesman said.

"At that time a key part of the Prevent (anti-extremism) strategy was to engage with groups and individuals representing a wide range of views and opinions to help us identify and understand grievances and seek to address them, while identifying and supporting those who are vulnerable or at risk from violent extremism.

"We do not routinely carry out background checks on organisations or individuals we work or have contact with.

"However, appropriate research and checks will be carried out where deemed proportionate, such as when sensitive information is to be discussed."

Chester University said he was paid an hourly rate for "introductory course material" for its "Muslim youth work" degree course, which had 20 students but closed two years ago because of declining numbers.

Muslim Youth Skills claims Mohammad is a visiting lecturer but the university said the connection had now ceased.

A spokeswoman for Slough borough council said: "We did contract Muslim Youth Skills for two pieces of work with young people in 2009. The overall cost was around £10,000."

Mohammad, when approached by this newspaper, said: "I'm not actually talking to anyone at the moment. If you want anything you will have to talk to my solicitor."

The Sunday Telegraph asked Mohammad if he discussed his links with July 7 when touting for work but he said: "I'm actually in training at the moment, yeah? I'm going back into training now."

A statement issued by Mohammad's solicitor Imran Khan disputed the way he was described in the coroner's report, including the phrase "terrorist sympathiser".

"Mr Mohammad wishes to make clear that these assertions are false and completely without foundation," said the statement.

The lawyer said he was writing to the coroner on Mohammad's behalf because "these assertions were never put to him so that he could have had the opportunity of addressing them".

"The coroner has been asked to correct the position," he said.


http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/ ... -Yard.html

[CopperLine]

Of course a story based on "The coroner's report said that the police "have never recovered any material which tends to suggest the Iqra bookshop was a base for unlawful activity as opposed to somewhere that was visited by men with extremist views"." would have been far less interesting than one in which the Torygraph insinuates that the guy is a terrorist.

This is the king of gutter journalism which far from exposing extremism is in danger of provoking it.

The police have no evidence of at all of Tafazal Mohammad doing anything illegal - if they had, he'd have been banged up quicker than you could shout 'help.' The coroner says the same thing. But the Torygraph ignore that and still imply he's a bad un.

He's fucked if he is and he's fucked if he's not. And yialousa1971 recycles the defamation. Meanwhile the real bad uns get on with being bad while yialousa1971/Torygraph/myopic police waste our time and lives by chasing cartoon villains of their own making. Way to go on the war on terror.

[Bananiot]

Hosgeldiniz copper, you have been missed ...

[B25]

Bananiotoglu the wannabe Turk.

[Bananiot]

You still think that the word Turk is a dirty work. Who did this to you?