It’s like something out of an old Looney Tunes cartoon: ‘He had a waterproof alibi’. The alibi being, of course, ‘I din’ do nuffin’! Duh, like I said, I din’ do nuffin’!’ The imam who runs the Islamic centre where the Flydubai terrorist was reportedly radicalised is rapidly paddling his little canoe up the river Denial. Never met him, he was never there, and, oh, I’ve always been about peace, you infidel dogs.
Melbourne preacher Samir ‘Abu Hamza’ Mohtadi has claimed he has “consistently preached peace” and “unequivocally” rejects violence as he denied any connection with accused Flydubai co-pilot Hamam al-Hammami.
“Consistently preached peace,” eh? You mean like this?
“O Allah, grant victory to our mujahideen in Palestine, strengthen their footing and grant them a clear victory.”
And I guess he was just being ‘peaceful’ when he called Jews “bloodsucking human beings; they are scavengers. They are not human… may Palestine be cleansed of these filthy Zionist terrorists”?
I’d hate to see him being radical, if this is his ‘peaceful’ side.
And if his denials are so at odds with his public record on ‘peaceful’, what are we to make of the rest of his denials?
One might almost feel a twinge of sympathy for the imam, were it not for his extensive catalogue of public pronouncements wishing pestilence upon the Zionist entity and describing human beings as bloodsucking scavengers. When the long arm of international counter-terrorism traces an attempted mid-air hijacking back to your modest little corner of Melbourne’s northern suburbs, issuing a wounded press release about administrative oversight feels somewhat akin to an arsonist complaining that the fire brigade tracked soot onto his freshly mopped hallway.
In a formal statement released with all the indignant majesty of a misunderstood prince, Mr Mohtadi sought to distance himself from the Omani co-pilot whose aviation career took a decidedly terminal turn over the Middle East.
“I (Abu Hamza) strongly reject recent media reports suggesting any connection between myself, Multicultural Youth Centre and the co-pilot, Al-Hammami,” he said. “I have never met Al-Hammami, who has been referred to in recent media reports, and we have no record of him ever attending our centre” […]
Mr Mohtadi criticised UAE officials for failing to contact him before making disclosures.
“The relevant authorities should have verified these claims with me before releasing or publishing such information,” he said.
Oh, well, of course: who are you gonna believe? The terrorist? Or the guy who might be embarrassed by being publicly connected to him?
Still, no doubt running MyCentre, an institution that has generously benefited from the taxpayer-funded benevolence of the Victorian government to the tune of nearly 400,000 dollars for women’s wellness facilities, leaves precious little time for vetting every radicalised aviation enthusiast who happens to cross paths with its orbit. Victorians no doubt sleep soundly knowing their millions of dollars of taxes being poured into multicultural grants is managed with such exacting oversight.
Rather than offering a direct clarification, Mr Mohtadi treated his flock to a four-minute digital sermon wherein he compared his present tribulations to the persecution faced by the Virgin Mary and the Prophet Muhammad. Because nothing says ‘innocent community pillar’ quite like equating media scrutiny of a terrorist plot to sacred martyrdom.
“Right through the ages, there’s something common. You’ll find those who are righteous, they’ve always been attacked, abused, accused, killed, imprisoned … and this is the way it is,” he said in the video.
Before explaining that silence is the golden shield of the truly pious.
How terribly convenient. When your public sermons routinely invoke divine wrath against foreign nations and reject the very fabric of liberal democracy, electing to ‘fast from talking’ the moment the Australian Federal Police and ASIO come sniffing around is a masterclass in tactical discretion. Victoria’s Joint Counter-Terrorism Team is presently untangling the web of boxing gyms, extremist literature, and local associations that nurtured Al-Hammami during his 2017 sojourn Down Under, even if investigators stop short of placing the imam himself at the apex of the plot.
Yet, as Executive Council of Australian Jewry co-chief executive Alex Ryvchin rightly observed, the presence of such subterranean ideological currents should surprise precisely no one.
“We have seen over the years the availability of extremist literature in religious bookstores, the presence of preachers of hate and violence and the capacity for those living in Australia to fall under the sway of recruiters and nefarious street preachers.”
Indeed we have. Even worse, we’ve seen how far our establishment figures will go to pretend they didn’t see a thing, even as the bodies pile up.
