Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Breaking News

British Imam Convicted in U.S. Court on Terrorism-Related Charges

A British imam was convicted in a U.S. court on terrorism-related charges linking him to al-Qaida and a fatal kidnapping plot.

Mustafa Kamel Mustafa, a former imam at London’s Finsbury Park mosque, was found guilty by a Manhattan jury on all 11 charges following a four-week trial. The jury found that Mustafa had been involved in a 1998 kidnapping in Yemen that left four people dead. He also was convicted of recruiting for al-Qaida and attempting to set up a terrorist training camp in Oregon.

The Muslim cleric is facing a sentence of up to life in prison.

His trial was held after he had served seven years in a British prison on separate charges of inciting racial hatred and soliciting murder, according to The New York Times. Mustafa was subsequently extradited to the United States to face the terrorism charges.

Mustafa, who is also known as Abu Hamza al-Masri, had denied any involvement in the kidnapping plot, in which 16 tourists were taken hostage. Four were subsequently killed when the abductors used them as human shields during a rescue raid.

Mustafa insisted that he had only acted as a spokesman for the kidnappers, but prosecutors charged that he had given a satellite phone to the lead kidnapper and exchanged phone calls with the kidnapper before and during the kidnapping.

Prosecutors also pointed to a recorded interview that Mustafa gave to one of the former hostages after she had been rescued.

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.

If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

With your support, we’ll be ready for whatever 2025 brings.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.