Articles

Memoirs of a Counter-Rebel Spy in London - Final Episode: Guess who ran Mister Abu Hamza?

By Glen Jenvey - Exclusive to "Asian Tribune"
Edited By - Joseph Thavaraja

In the immediate months after 9/11, I needed a webmaster and a net-expert. I logged on to Russian based www. pravda.ru's forum. I knew a contact would soon come along who thought the same as me. I noticed a few postings by some very clever posters.

By now I was not required to obtain permission from my ex-bosses any longer as I had already told them of my plans to web-hit on other groups.

I started writing about the London based www.azzam.com which was the main Mujahideen web-site based on a US web server but run from London. It was one of several al-Qaeda sites based in the west but more importantly, it personified 'authentic Saudi dissidency'.

Years later such al-Qaeda site numbers would grow to hundreds. So would the new breed of cyber-experts and cyber-journalists and, more importantly, self-proclaimed experts who surf the net with search engines and monitor forums with translators for quick cash off newspapers or a quick book (Watching these I realized why the west cannot catch Bin Laden—if the trends to continue this way, probably they never will)…

On www. azzam.com, I posted gruesome photos of body parts of dead Russian troops (thanks mostly to Chechens rebels) that were hung on sticks. I hero worshipped al-Qaeda attacks on the west. I hid the fact that I myself was doing it from the West. After a few postings I was contacted by a man who asked me to call him as one "Jonathan". We started working together with the aim of shutting down the main al-Qaeda site -www. azzam.com and even all connected sites, if possible.

First component of our plan of attack was to write to the hosting company until it took the site off –and some time later, www.azzam.com was taken off.

Secondly, we needed to setup a false Islamic site that would lure the radical Islamists in UK. It also would give us an idea of what they talk in private about. I purchased the domain address and space for the hosting.

The site was www. islamic-news.co.uk

Jonathan designed and built it…In fact, he did a good job of it as he was a IT expert. Nevertheless we were not getting 'the right people' looking at the site.

Thereafter, I met an Indian IT expert who was keen on receiving intelligence via an intelligence group site. From his point of view, the site could be used as a 'digital dead drop' spot, this time the material being PC files. I was testing the members to see if any of them were following my posts up…One Mr. 'Khalid' did so.

I recruited him on board to make the site more radical.

In fact my instruction was that the site is radical enough only if it gets shut down!

Khalid's site looked good and we began receiving mail from radicals and replies to my emails. Kashmiri news and press statements were emailed to the site daily..

Through originating IP addresses of email, we traced the senders to cities from all across Pakistan.. However, they did not originate anywhere near Pakistan occupied Kashmir/border despite these conflict areas being equipped with net access. Further analyses of email IP's revealed a shocking fact: The emailing of Press releases in fact had support from no less than the Pakistani backed government officials themselves. They also appeared to be fuelling the cross border issue with the Indians.

The site I had my eye on the most was Abu Hamza's www. supportersofshariah.org

It was designed by one Abu Samaya-based in US…
Abu Hamza Al-Masri, 47, was the imam of the controversial North London Central Mosque in Finsbury Park. Born in Egypt, he studied engineering in Egypt and Britain. He left for Afghanistan in 1993 having worked as a civil engineer in the UK for a while. In Afghanistan, he lost both hands and an eye in an explosion. In 1996, he returned and became the main imam of the Finsbury Park mosque…

Under the pseudonyms of Ali Khal and Pervez Khan, I began writing to Abu Hamza saying how much I admired his work. I also called the mosque. I gradually realized Abu Hamza and his circle harbored hatred of all white non-Moslems. I then e-mailed him that I wanted to Britishers to join the Kashmiri rebels and the al-Qaida. But more importantly, I said, "that you could do a much more effective job if you could use some old al-Qaida training videos". Several more phone calls & e-mails later, I received 20 cassette tapes, and newspapers of Afghanistan, Kashmir, Palestine, and Chechnia. I contacted the British police, but to no avail.

Surprisingly, the Indian intelligence gave me good feedback… General Sharma, the London based Indian Military Attache of that time, was attentively reading into these 'latest developments'…
Meanwhile, on the other side of the Atlantic, was an African American gentleman whose birth name was James Earnest Thompson but who was now known as James Ujaama.. Before being converted to Islam and becoming radicalized, James was known for his work with the poor in Seattle and had three educational books on entrepreneurship to his credit. His community contribution was highly regarded that Seattle gave him the honour of "key to the city." Thereafter, the State of Washington lawmakers even declared June 10, 1994, James Ujaama Day.

What many were not aware was that he was also busy designing Hamza's internet site www. supportersofshariah.org under the name Abu Samaya…In fact, James was the webmaster himself.

In March 2002 I was off to Mexico where I visited the American Consulate in Mexico City…I showed that tracking the IP can help the police straight to the offenders' front door. I also supplied passwords to our false site and gave permission for them to monitor the users clicking on to the site. Upon my return to the UK the anti terrorist squad contacted me wanting a 'statement' for the FBI –my statement gave permission for the FBI to use my site and its stats to monitor users linking to www. islamic-news.co.uk via www. supportersofshariah.org .

The first clicker started clicking..and tested the link to Hamza's site…It was the Webmaster Ujaama….To make sure, we started running our IP tracer.. The tracer started by showing that this clicker came from the US; Then the tracer began narrowing down to State and City levels…from there it unveiled the IP of the internet connection host and finally, to the household --- and who else but it was James Ujaama himself!

As one news-caster would later report of the Ujaama brothers' arrest: "James Ujama was seized from his grandmother's house in Denver as a material witness …."

Now we had to move fast----We had to show that the netted man had links with Abu Hamza…

Meanwhile, my website partner Jonathan wrote to me and asked if I had any footage on a Black African American – James Ujaama - which I had…I then met with a clever American women (let's call her Mrs Galt) who was great at website construction..

Just when the FBI was being asked by the courts for evidence about Ujaama so that the court can go ahead with granting bail to him and let him go, the brilliant Mrs Galt promptly –and covertly-set up the site and transferred the video tapes into small downloadable files…

Thereafter, she uploaded the videos to the internet for all to freely download them at http://abuhamza.org.uk/video.html

In the courts, at first, Ujaama denied any knowledge or contacts with Abu Hamza….But the uploaded video (in which he sits with Abu Hamza) was sent to court via the FBI. When it was shown to him, Ujaama's defenses virtually fell flat…

This was the internet spy sting that the press all over the world reported on.

In the end James Ujaama pleaded guilty in exchange for light sentence for giving evidence against Abu Hamza, the Mr Big.

However, Hamza still eluded us…And we decided that Abu Hamza would be our next target.

Nevertheless, as they say "there lay the rub…"

John Loftus, a former US Justice Department prosecutor may know more intelligence secrets than anyone alive.. He once held some of the highest security clearances in the world and had special access to NATO Cosmic and CIA Codeword projects. In the words of John Loftus, Abu Hamza was recruited by no less than the MI6 in the mid-1990s to draft British Muslims to fight in Kosovo. American and French security sources corroborate the revelation. And the MI6 connection raised questions about his relationship with the British authorities.

We had to overcome this hurdle….and we already had the tool;
We had the videos and audios already uploaded on the net, but more importantly, James Ujaama's admissions are now public..the pressure was now on the British cops to act.

Act, they did.

On May 27, 2004, at the request of the United States Abu Hamza was arrested by the Metropolitan Police of New Scotland Yard, London. He was thereafter detained in Belmarsh jail where he spent two months till August 2004, when Abu Hamza was formally arrested by the British Authorities and taken to Paddington Green police on some watered down charges of "sermons to incite murder and stir up racial hatred…" Man Behind Terror Big's Arrest

To his own credit, Hamza later said: "If I was not already in prison, I would have laughed."

I think you will agree….

Series Concluded

- Asian Tribune –

Part I: Memoirs of an anti-LTTE undercover agent in London

Part II: Delicious Curry served with a Stark Warning!

Part III: "Is there a D-Notice on us?"

Part IV: Oh what a Friday it was….

Part V: The South African Roulette and 'Shots of Arrack'

Part VI: al-Qaeda flies high in London

Part VII: The British Arms Deals

Part VIII: Let's call those 'Good Ole' British Chaps' back to Ceylon!

Part IX: "Start Filming Again!"

Part X: KA-BooM ….Holy crap, is that a C4?"

Part XI: "….<<>> SOS"