Isis beheadings of journalists are against Islam, says Abu Qatada

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/sep/07/isis-beheadings-islam-abu-qatada

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The radical Islamist cleric Abu Qatada has said the beheading of two American journalists by Islamic State (Isis) is against Islamic teachings. Speaking from his courtroom cell in Jordan, he told journalists: "Messengers should not be killed," quoting the prophet Muhammad.

Jordan's state security court later postponed Abu Qatada's terrorism trial to 24 September. The court was expected to announce a verdict on charges of involvement in the "millennium bomb plot" of 2000. But the judge said the case was still under scrutiny.

The Salafist preacher has been in Jordan since last July, deported from the UK and detained awaiting retrial on two decade-old terrorism charges. The cleric, once described as "Osama bin Laden's right-hand man in Europe", is influential among Jordanian Salafists, who follow his statements on Syria, Iraq and extremist groups issued from behind bars.

Abu Qatada's support for Jabhat al-Nusra, al-Qaida's offshoot in Syria, deepens the split between Isis and Nusra supporters among Jordan's Salafist jihadists. Another radical cleric, Abu Muhammad al-Makdisi, recently denounced Isis as well after his release from a Jordanian prison.

Analysts believe this divide-and-rule strategy helps Jordanian authorities' keep control over the Salafist movement in the country.

The judge's announcement took less than five minutes. Abu Qatada's brothers, children and sisters remained on a court bench, some of the women weeping as journalists pressed against the courtroom cell to ask the Salafist leader about his views on Isis violence.

Abu Qatada was convicted in absentia in 1999 and 2000 of involvement in two terror plots in Jordan. He was in Britain at the time, having sought asylum from a Jordanian crackdown on militants in 1993.

UK authorities detained Abu Qatada in 2002 under anti-terrorism laws, starting a decade-long legal battle to deport the cleric. The controversy centred on Jordan's potential use of evidence obtained by torture in Abu Qatada's retrials.

The only evidence implicating Abu Qatada in terrorism was his alleged co-conspirators' confessions, which European courts feared had been extracted via torture.

Abu Qatada returned to Jordan last July only after a UK-Jordan treaty guaranteed that Jordanian courts would not try him using evidence obtained via torture.

Judges acquitted him of the first terrorist charge in June. They ruled that the confession by his alleged co-conspirator Abd al-Nasser al-Khamaiseh was admissible evidence but insufficient grounds for conviction, even though Abu Qatada had been sentenced to death on the same evidence 14 years ago.

Using Khamaiseh's confession violated the UK-Jordan treaty's safeguard against torture-extracted evidence, said the Human Rights Watch researcher Adam Coogle. "That the confession was admitted as evidence at all shows just how worthless the treaty really was," Coogle said. "It's clear that 'diplomatic assurances' from countries with poor records on torture aren't worth the paper they're written on."

Abu Qatada will walk free if acquitted on 24 September. The Home Office has made clear that he will not be permitted to return to Britain.