Abu Hamza not allowed back in raided mosque, says trustee

Abu Hamza, the militant Islamic preacher, will not return to Finsbury Park mosque since the recent police raid, one of its trustees pledged yesterday.

Abdul Kadir Burkatulla said the north London mosque would remain closed for at least three months while it was cleaned of what he called "physical and spiritual filth".

Mr Burkatulla also predicted that no other mosque would allow Abu Hamza to voice his extremist views.

"Those who misuse the mosque facilities are banned by the injunction of the Koran that they should not be allowed to re-enter and misuse the name of God and the places of worship for their own purpose," Mr Burkatulla said. "We can stop him. That is what the trustees are working out at the moment.

"The worshipful can come, but those known to be mischief- makers, they can be excluded and they will be excluded.

"I don't think any other mosque will now allow Abu Hamza to come as a preacher there, anywhere."

There were mixed feelings about the police raid which shut the mosque last week, Mr Burkatulla said.

"We welcome this opportunity to cleanse the mosque from the physical filth and from the spiritual filth that has been spilled over by some unwanted people," he said.

"We are sorry, and happy also. Sorry that it happened in a manner which is really bad publicity for the mosque and the Muslim community.

"But we are happy to get rid of one of the most extremist elements in Muslim society."

Abu Hamza, who says he lost his hands and an eye while he was fighting the Russians in Afghanistan, used force to get his own way in the mosque, Mr Burkatulla told the BBC Radio 4 PM programme.

Mr Burkatulla himself had been bundled out of the building by Abu Hamza's supporters while trying to serve an injunction on the preacher.

"He used intimidation, verbal abuse and even physical use of force to exclude trustees, to bully them and intimidate them to surrender to certain of his demands," he said. "They have been threatened verbally and even assaulted in the mosque to the extent that they are too frightened to speak."

Since the raid, worshippers have been praying in the street outside the mosque.