A Tangled Web

A Charge of Convenience



I suppose I should be leaping up and down with joy at the news of Abu Hamza's impending trial here in the United Kingdom on charges of terrorism. The fact is, I can't. Call me 'old Mr Cynical' is you like (or anything else within reason), because I fear this 11th hour charge is basically a ploy to preclude the chances of the popeyed dreg being tried in the United States.



British and European law forbids enactment of the death penalty. It also prohibits HM Government from extraditing anyone likely to face the death sentence in other countries still sensible enough to use capital punishment. Ergo, British authorities sought a promise from their US counterparts that Hamza would not be fried or gassed when found guilty in an American court. I believe the latter would not (rightfully) give such a guarantee, hence the now indefinite delay in Hamza's trans-Atlantic journey.



My question is: why the hell should Hamza escape the death penalty? Here we have an individual who has incited and defended Islamic terrorism across the globe, established links with Al Queda, praised the monsters behind the 9/11 attacks, and called for the bloody annihilation of Israel. Now I know we Brits are cursed with a political administration that will permit any old rubbish to settle in this once green and pleasant land; turn a blind eye to their refusal to live by generally recognised decent principles of citizenship; and usher forth a welter of 'human rights' legislation to defend them every time these people avoid exhibiting any semblance of loyalty to the British State, but manipulation of the judicial process is pushing it even by the corrupted standards of New Labour.



Should Abu Hamza be convicted in the UK, he will face incarceration in a British jail with all the customary penal comforts of an en suite toilet, a comfortable bed and satellite television. Me thinks it would be infinitely more gratifying to see him shaking like a leaf in the event of an American judge sentencing him to burn in the fires of hell.