You couldn't make this up

The BBC have done it again; their pro-Islam, politically correct, cuddly world view led them to this - (my comments in italics and my emphasis in bold)

"The BBC funded a paintballing trip for men later accused of Islamic terrorism and failed to pass on information about the 21/7 bombers to police, a court was told...

Mohammed Hamid, who is charged with overseeing a two-year radicalisation programme to prepare London-based Muslim youths for jihad, was described as a “cockney comic” by a BBC producer.

The BBC paid for Mr Hamid and fellow defendants Muhammad al-Figari and Mousa Brown to go on a paintballing trip at the Delta Force centre in Tonbridge, Kent, in February 2005. The men, accused of terrorism training, were filmed for a BBC programme called Don’t Panic, I’m Islamic, screened in June 2005."

The irony of the BBC filming three people later to be accused of terrorism offences for a programme called "Don't Panic, I'm Islamic" is off the scale.


"The BBC paid Mr Hamid, an Islamic preacher who denies recruiting and grooming the men behind the failed July 2005 attack, a £300 fee to take part in the programme, Woolwich Crown Court was told.

It was alleged that Mr Hamid told a BBC reporter that he would use the corporation’s money to pay a fine imposed by magistrates for a public order offence."

Should the BBC be paying people's court fines? Do you think they would pay Nick Griffin's if he was ever convicted?


"Nasreen Suleaman, a researcher on the programme, told the court that Mr Hamid, 50, contacted her after the July 2005 attack and told her of his association with the bombers. But she said that she felt no obligation to contact the police with this information. Ms Suleaman said that she informed senior BBC managers but was not told to contact the police."

Someone called Ms Suleaman and told her that he was associated with the failed London 21/7 bombers and she felt no obligation to contact the police with this information! Let me repeat that, "she felt no obligation to contact the police with this information". Once again "she felt no obligation to contact the police with this information". I am sorry but words fail me...


The article continues later "Duncan Penny, for the prosecution, asked Ms Suleaman if she had told Mr Hamid to go to the police or contacted the police herself. Mr Penny asked: “Here was a man who told you that he knew those individuals who, as I understand it, were still at large for what on the face of it was the attempted bombings of the transport network a fortnight after it happened, and he was telling you he had some knowledge of them? There was a worldwide manhunt going on, wasn’t there?”

She replied: “I got the sense that he was already talking to the police. I referred it to my immediate boss at the BBC. I wasn’t told that there was an obligation. In fact it was referred above her as well. It was such a big story.” She added: “I don’t think it’s my obligation to tell another adult that he should go to the police.”

Obligation!



"Phil Rees, who produced the show, told the court that he was impressed by Mr Hamid’s sense of humour while looking for someone to appear in the documentary. He said: “I think he had a comic touch and he represented a strand within British Muslims. I took it as more like a rather Steptoe and Son figure rather than seriously persuasive. I saw him as a kind of Cockney comic.” Mr Rees, who now works for the Arabic TV station al-Jazeera, gave Mr Hamid a signed copy of his book Dining With Terrorists."



"Ms Suleaman told the court that Mr Hamid was keen to appear in the programme. She said: “He was so up for it. We took the decision that paintballing would be a fun way of introducing him.

“There are many, many British Muslims that I know who for the past 15 or 20 years have been going paintballing. It’s a harmless enough activity. I don’t think there is any suggestion, or ever has been, that it’s a terrorist training activity.”"

Not specifically paintballing, but haven't there been stories about "training camps" for young Muslim men in the British countrtyside including the 7/7 bombers?