Popular News From Popular Sites: Former al Qaeda associate testifies in U.S. trial of handless cleric

Tuesday, April 29, 2014

Former al Qaeda associate testifies in U.S. trial of handless cleric

Handout photo shows Badat who pleaded guilty in London to conspiring to use an explosive device ... By Joseph Ax NEW YORK (Reuters) - For the second time in two months, a British former al Qaeda associate on Monday testified via live video feed in a U.S. terrorism trial, as prosecutors seek to convict handless, one-eyed London cleric Abu Hamza al-Masri of supporting the group. The testimony of Saajid Badat, 33, who appeared on a television feed in Manhattan federal court, was aimed at linking Abu Hamza, 56, with the notorious al Qaeda training camps in Afghanistan, where fighters learned combat tactics in the 1990s and early 2000s. But as he did last month in the U.S. trial of Osama bin Laden's son-in-law, Suleiman Abu Ghaith, Badat also gave jurors an detailed look at life inside al Qaeda in the years before and after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people in the United States. Prosecutors have accused Abu Hamza, who lost an eye and both hands fighting in Afghanistan in the 1980s, of sending followers and money to that country to help al Qaeda and the Taliban.




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