IN the wake of the bombings, politicians and police have become increasingly concerned that groups such as the Saviour Sect are radicalising disaffected young men into potential terrorists.



On Friday the prime minister said that the successor groups of Al-Muhajiroun, including the Saviour Sect, could be banned under new anti-terrorist proposals.

At a hastily arranged press conference in Chingford, Essex, in response to the proposals, Bakri said the Al-Muhajiroun group had never supported terror attacks in the UK.

After Friday prayers, five cars full of sect members — including our reporter — drove to Chingford to support him during his press conference. When they arrived, however, they were greeted by Abu Yahya and told to leave quickly without being seen.

One of the group later told our reporter that Bakri had not wanted it to appear as if he were the leader of an organisation. He was still unwilling for it to be known that he was the leader of the Saviour Sect.

Behind the scenes the rhetoric of the sect was not blunted by Blair’s crackdown. Zachariah weighed in with a new bloodcurdling sermon at Friday prayers at the Selby Centre.

“The message of Muhammad,” he told his young congregation, “is how to fight the enemies of Allah; how to execute the enemies of Allah . . . how to return them back to the Allah. Not just through da’wah (invitation); not just through being kind to them; but with the sword.”

He added: “Tony Blair is a Christian. He went to the Pope to praise him . . . and he went to Iraq for only one reason. Because of his ancestors who worked so hard to destroy Islam from the face of the earth.

“To dismantle Islam. To divide and rule . . . him and his ancestors worked hard from the crusaders in the beginning and then their empire building, installing their proxy leaders.”

If the words were just as fiery, the sect was immediately becoming more cautious about its public activities. When our reporter asked for more leaflets and videos, Nasser told him that they had been hidden away.

It appeared that the sect was covering its tracks and preparing to go underground.


Insight team: Ali Hussain and Jonathan Calvert

ABHORRENT BUT LEGAL: THE DIFFICULTIES IN PROSECUTING THOSE WHO PREACH HATE

Lawyers suggested yesterday that it would be difficult to prosecute Bakri and his fellow preachers under existing legislation, although many of their remarks would probably breach new laws proposed by the government to stamp out the glorification and endorsement of terrorism.

Geoffrey Bindman, a leading human rights solicitor, argued that Brooks’s apparent support for suicide bombings and his call for Muslims to “instil terror into the hearts” of non-believers might not be “specific” enough to warrant criminal proceedings.

“If he had said, ‘You must go out and blow yourself up on crowded Tube trains’, then you could say that he’s telling these people to go out and commit murder,” Bindman said. “An incitement in a general rhetorical statement would be difficult to prove as a crime.”

Duncan Lamont, a partner at the Charles Russell law firm, said: “These are intelligent people who are careful about what they say and do. Until now they have been able to cock a snook. Under existing legislation their comments are abhorrent but not illegal.”

However, Bakri’s description of the Tube bombers as “the fantastic four” and Brooks’s comments about the destruction of tall buildings would most likely fall foul of a new offence of indirect incitement or glorifying terrorist acts. “If you could satisfy a jury that he meant 9/11, then under what is proposed you have him bang to rights,” Lamont said.