Web Site Offered ‘Jihad Challenge’
by T.R. Reid, Washington Post
LONDON - Sakina Security Services offered its British customers “serious firearms training” at gun ranges in the United States. The London firm said this was a case of finding a profitable business niche in Britain, where guns are hard to get. But the British government said Sakina’s gun classes amounted to terrorism.
In a criminal trial that began today in London’s Old Bailey courthouse, prosecutor Mark Ellison alleged that Sakina was seeking to “assist or prepare for terrorism” when it offered a two-week course in firearms that it labeled the “Ultimate Jihad Challenge.”
Ellison called on the jury to convict Sakina’s owner, 44-year-old Londoner Sulayman Balal Zain-ul-Abidin, on charges of “inviting others to undergo instructional training in the use of firearms” for use in terrorism.
The defendant, who did not speak in court today, has denied the charge. According to the prosecutor, he told police his firm was selling self-defense and security training, with British Muslims as the main customers. Attorneys for the defendant declined to discuss the case.
A spokesman at the Home Office, Britain’s equivalent of the Justice Department, said there has been no test of the basic legal question in the case -- whether it is an invitation to terrorism to offer training in the use of weapons.
The prosecutor told the jury today that Zain-ul-Abidin was in fact training people for terrorism, and that Sakina’s use of the word “jihad” to advertise the course was evidence that terrorism was the goal. “Jihad: the word used by Islamic extremists to justify acts of direct action, fighting, aggression or what is commonly called holy war against their enemies,” the Reuters news agency quoted Ellison as saying.
Zain-ul-Abidin, a former chef, was arrested in a police roundup of alleged militant Muslims shortly after the Sept. 11 attacks in the United States. British news organizations have said he is connected to anti-American Muslim leaders in Britain who praised the attacks.
But Ellison, the prosecutor, said there is no allegation that Sakina’s training program was related to Sept. 11.
Much of the prosecution’s evidence comes from Sakina Security’s Web site, which has been shut down by British police. According to media reports, the site said the two-week course in the United States offered instruction in “the art of bone-breaking” and ways to “improvise explosive devices,” as well as the chance to fire up to 3,000 practice rounds at a gun range.
British prosecutors have previously said Zain-ul-Abidin worked with an “associate” at a shooting range in Alabama to provide British Muslims with firearms training and shooting experience.
Mark Yates, a British bodyguard who has reportedly taught gun skills at a camp near Marion, Ala., is scheduled to appear at the trial as a witness for the prosecution.
The Terrorism Act, the statute under which Zain-ul-Abidin is charged, was passed in 2000 as British security services began to expand their defenses beyond the traditional threat from Irish nationalists to include militant Muslims. Because of its relatively open borders and its protection of free speech, Britain is home to a number of Muslim leaders who regularly denounce the United States and call for jihad against it and Israel.
In the weeks after Sept. 11, British police arrested many of the militants. Zain-ul-Abidin was picked up then, and has been in jail since awaiting trial.