Feb. 24, 2003 London cleric convicted for soliciting murder in sermons By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
A Muslim cleric who allegedly urged followers to kill "nonbelievers" was convicted Monday of soliciting murder.
A jury at the Old Bailey found Sheikh Abdullah el-Faisal guilty of three charges of soliciting murder, and three charges of incitement of racial hatred.
Sentencing was set for March 7.
El-Faisal, 39, denied encouraging anyone to commit murder, making threatening or abusive tape recordings and stirring up racial hatred.
Prosecutors said el-Faisal preached across Britain and sold Arabic-language tapes of his speeches in specialist shops. They said his sermons encouraged followers to kill Hindus, Jews and Americans.
El-Faisal, a Jamaican-born convert to Islam, was arrested in February and jailed for six months before being released on bail.
His lawyers argued that he was a respected cleric whose quotations from scripture have been taken out of context.
The case was the first prosecution in more than a century under the 1861 Offenses against the Person Act of soliciting murder against persons unknown.
