Jihadi schoolgirl's dad took her to hate preacher's rally at 13: Shock admission by man who blamed police when girl fled to join ISIS
- Abase Hussen said maybe his daughter was influenced by attending a rally
- Amira Abase was one of three teenage girls who fled to Syria in February
- Mr Hussen attended one rally alongside one of Lee Rigby's killers
- He said he moved to Britain in 1999 for freedom and democracy
The
flag-burning father of a runaway British jihadi schoolgirl yesterday
admitted taking his daughter to an extremist rally when she was 13.
Abase
Hussen – who blamed police for failing to stop his daughter fleeing to
join IS earlier this year – conceded the teenager was ‘maybe’ influenced
by the rally organised by banned terror group Al-Muhajiroun.
Mr
Hussen told MPs last month, after his daughter Amira Abase fled to
Syria aged 15, that he could think of ‘nothing’ to explain why she and
two friends had decided to join IS, as well as keeping quiet about his
own links to radicalism.
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Abase Hussen, left, took his daughter Amira, right, to a demonstration when she was aged just 13
Abase Hussen, circled, marched at the head of a violent rally held by Muslim extremists in London in 2012
It
then emerged he had been in caught in shocking video footage amid a
flag-burning mob, screaming in rage at a protest outside the US embassy
in London, in 2012. Also at the rally were hate cleric Anjem Choudary
and Michael Adebowale, one of the killers of Fusilier Lee Rigby.
He has now apologised for attending, but admitted going to two further rallies – with his impressionable daughter in tow.
One
took place outside the Saudi embassy in London, in 2013, and is said to
have been organised by the Islamic extremist group Al-Muhajiroun,
founded by hate cleric Omar Bakri Mohammed and linked to many Islamic
terror atrocities of the past decade.
Yesterday
Mr Hussen, who went to this rally and another similar one with his
daughter and wife Fetia, conceded they might have influenced the
youngster, who would have been 13 at the time.
‘The
only reason we took her first time, was because there was no one to
look after her and we both felt it important to go,’ he said.
The
rally was held against the treatment of Ethiopians in Saudi Arabia
after human rights violations, and Mr Hussen, 47, who is from Ethiopia,
said: ‘We both lost many people back home, we wanted to try to get help
for people back home, too many human rights violations there. Many died.
Maybe it influenced her.’
Amira
was one of three girls from Bethnal Green Academy in East London who
flew to Turkey before being smuggled across the border into Syria in
February. Soon after, in an extraordinary exchange at the home affairs
select committee, Mr Hussen blamed the authorities for failing to stop
his daughter running off to Syria. Asked by chairman Keith Vaz if Amira
had been exposed to any extremism, Mr Hussen replied: ‘Not at all.
Nothing.’
Yesterday
respected analyst Shiraz Maher, senior fellow at The International
Centre for the Study of Radicalisation at King’s College London,
tweeted: ‘Remember that Amira Abase’s father blamed the police for his
daughter going to Syria and effectively misled Parliament with this
nonsense.’
Mr
Hussen told The Times yesterday that he felt ashamed to have been at
the flag-burning rally. He said: ‘I went to show my feelings because my
religion was being insulted, my faith. Protesting is not radical, it is
our right.’
Amira Abase, pictured, was one of three girls who flew from Gatwick to Turkey before crossing to Syria
Asked
why he was pictured at the front of the mob, he said: ‘The crowd pushed
me. I feel tricked. I did not know who they [the organisers] were. I
just followed the crowd, I feel ashamed.’
Mr
Hussen came to Britain from Germany in 1999 and said he came ‘for
democracy, for the freedom, for a better life for children, so they
could learn English’. He said he was upset with his daughter joining IS,
saying she was ‘just a normal kid who is a victim of extremists’.
Mr
Hussen said he felt ‘terrible’ to know he had been protesting with one
of Mr Rigby’s killers and said: ‘It was brutal, it has nothing to do
with Islam, it is not human. You don’t do things like this.’
Amira
fled to become a ‘jihadi bride’ with her friends Shamima Begum, 15, and
Kadiza Sultana, 16. A fourth girl from their school, Sharmeena Begum,
left for Syria in December. Giving evidence to the MPs’ committee, Mr
Hussen accused police of not doing enough to warn him and other parents.
Last
night Tory MP Michael Ellis, who sits on the committee, said: ‘I would
certainly be in favour of Mr Hussen being recalled to give him a full
opportunity to explain what he clearly did not when he appeared before
us.
‘It’s
shocking and outrageous anyone would think it appropriate to take their
13-year-old to such a rally. But then to tell a House of Commons
committee you have no idea why a young teenager should seek to travel to
Syria, when you have taken her to more than one of these events, is
simply breathtaking.’
1 comment:
Don’t be so harsh all she wants is safety, benefits, a free house, someone to share a terror plot with, more children to claim from the state and a kebab shop.
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