| BACKGROUND INTO ORIGINAL CASEMunir Farooqi, Israr Malik and Matthew Newton were exposed after undercover officers infiltrated their attempts to groom vulnerable men to travel to training camps and battlefields abroad, where they would fight coalition forces.
The group used religious stalls – known as dawah stalls – in the Longsight and city centre areas to target vulnerable people and after converting them to the Islamic faith, radicalised them using terrorist literature, CDs and DVDs.
They would then be groomed to commit violent jihad abroad. (** see definition **)
The two undercover officers, known under the aliases of Simon and Ray, spent more than a year infiltrating the group and gaining the trust of its leader Munir Farooqi, who had previously been imprisoned in Afghanistan after fighting alongside the Taliban in 2001.
Munir would also use ‘war stories’ from his imprisonment to impress and encourage Ray and Simon.
Matthew Newton assisted in the recruitment and radicalisation process.
Munir befriended Israr Malik in 2008. In early 2009 he was jailed for an unrelated offence, and Munir arranged for extremist literature to be brought into prison in order to radicalise him. Upon Malik’s release, he was a more intense character and was actively encouraging Simon and Ray to join him in committing jihad.
When officers from the NW CTU searched Munir’s home, they discovered thousands of books, DVDs and CDs – a few of which were classed as terrorist publications encouraging Muslims to commit violent jihad.
Munir Ahmed Farooqi (born 23/03/1957) of Victoria Terrace, Longsight, was convicted of engaging in conduct in preparation for acts of terrorism, three counts of soliciting to murder, dissemination of terrorist publications and sentenced to life imprisonment, to serve a minimum of nine years before becoming eligible for parole.
Matthew Ronald Newton (born 14/12/1981) of Stockport Road, Levenshulme, was convicted of engaging in conduct in preparation for acts of terrorism and two counts of dissemination of terrorist publications and sentenced to six years.
Israr Hussain Malik (born 15/08/1988) of Bowdon Avenue, Fallowfield, was convicted of engaging in conduct in preparation for acts of terrorism and two counts of soliciting to murder and received an indeterminate sentence. It will be five years before he is eligible for parole.
BACKGROUND TO EACH OFFENDER
MUNIR FAROOQI
Munir was born in Pakistan and moved to England about 50 years ago. He lived at Victoria Terrace with his wife, two daughters and son Harris. The house has four levels, with three rooms in the basement he used to store his books, DVDs and CDs.
On 4 September 2003, he was stopped at Manchester Airport and said that in October 2001 he went to the Peshawar area of Pakistan where he was supplied with a rifle and bullets and fought against the Taliban. He was caught and imprisoned at Sheberghan Prison in Afghanistan, where he was photographed, and remained captive between November 2001 and May 2002. He was released by Pakistan Air Force troops and then eventually returned to the UK.
Munir spoke to both Ray and Simon about his experiences, and although his account changes from time to time it is clear he fought and his ‘war stories’ were used as a way of impressing and persuading Ray, Simon and Israr Malik to emulate him.
When he was stopped in 2003, he was returning from a holiday in Pakistan. He was found in possession of a number of photos taken from the mountainous Swat area of men holding rifles.
Munir’s passport was seized during the investigation and showed he regularly visited Muslim countries. He also used the email address
osamawanabe@hotmail.co.ukMATTHEW NEWTON
Known as ‘Hamza’, Newton was a white convert and lived above his workplace, Click4Homes, on Stockport Road.
ISRAR MALIK
Malik was unemployed at the time and lived with his parents and siblings. He met Munir at the dawah stall in 2008 and said he had found Islam again after being involved in criminal activity and splitting up from his partner. In January 2009 he was sentenced to 18 months detention in a Young Offenders’ Institution for an unrelated offence. During this time, he was visited by Munir and Harris. After his release in June (with the exception of a four-week period when he was jailed again for breaching his licence) he fell under Munir’s wing and referred to him as ‘uncle’, and started to wear traditional Muslim attire and grew a beard.
LITERATURE AND DVDsS/CDsS RECOVERED
In Munir Farooqi’s basement officers recovered more than 50,000 books and leaflets and more than 5,000 CDs, DVDsS and cassettes. They were a mixture of legitimate ways of spreading the Islamic faith, anti-West propaganda and three books and three DVDs considered terrorist publications.
These terrorist publications spread the messages of violence and hate and emphasise that in order to carry out jihad, it is the responsibility of an individual to fight, kill and die if necessary, encouraging people to travel to either Pakistan and/or Afghanistan and commit acts of terrorism.
An example of this was a video Munir had called ‘Dirty Kuffar’, a propaganda film which graphically depicts the consequences of the wars in Iraq and elsewhere, designed to provoke outrage and convince the viewer to take action against coalition forces.
The books ‘The Absent Obligation’ and ‘Defence of the Muslim Lands’, found in Munir’s basement, were also found in a bag linked to Mohammed Sidique Khan, one of the 7 July 2005 suicide bombers, and both books were also found at the home of Habib Ahmed, who was jailed for 10 years for terrorism offences in Manchester.
A series of lectures called ‘The Constants of Jihad’ by Anwar al-Awlaki were given to UCO Simon by Matthew Newton. Anwar al-Awlaki is a senior member of al-Qaeda and has been linked to a series of attacks and plots across the world from 9/11 to the shootings at Fort Hood in November 2009, and also the Christmas Day attempt by Umar Abdul Mutallab to explode the flight travelling to Detroit, Michigan.
Matthew Newton had the majority of Awlaki material. A key part of the evidence against him was that on 19 August 2009, when Simon suggested he was interested in going on ‘holiday’ Newton told him – I need to get you some Awlaki lectures quick.
CASE SUMMARY AND CHRONOLOGY
On 6 November 2008, Ray began his deployment and was tasked to form a relationship with Munir to establish if he was the leader of a recruiting network. Six days later, Simon was given the same task. At this stage, neither officer knew of the other.
The undercover officers recorded their conversations and then met with their handlers to transcribe what they had heard. In total, the officers wrote more than 6,000 pages of transcripts.
Ray first met Munir at the dawah stall in Longsight on 26 November 2008 and initially the conversations were about the Islamic faith in general while each side gained the other’s trust. Ray converted to Islam by the end of the year and gradually Munir and Newton began to be more open about their anti-Western views.
Simon’s first meeting was with Matthew Newton and Munir Farooqi at the High Street dawah stall near the Arndale Centre on 4 January 2009. Simon told Munir he was a recovering alcoholic and Munir gave him his telephone number and address and told Simon he could visit him and should attend a mosque.
Over the course of the next few months, Munir increasingly took Ray and Simon into his confidence, giving them copies of various DVDs and lectures which espoused varying degrees of anti-Western sentiment. The lectures were given by controversial speakers like Sheikh Khalid Yasin and Shaykh Feiz.
On 27 January 2009, Simon converted to the Muslim faith and was given the name Muhammed Abdullah.
As early as January 2009, Munir was talking about his time in Afghanistan and when asked by Ray if he would fight again, Munir said: ‘You know when you’ve tasted the honey – then you only want more – until Allah takes you from this earth, if that time comes again, when I wake up in the morning I think to myself when will that day come?’
Over the next few months, the trust between Ray and Simon and the other members of the group grew and the two undercover officers regularly met with Munir and Newton and attended mosques together. Munir continued to speak of his experiences in Afghanistan and also said he had stopped attending at a local mosque because he feared he was being followed by MI5 and police.
With the relationships firmly established, things began to intensify in the late spring/early summer of 2009 with more direct references to going abroad to fight and the exchange of terrorist publications.
In May 2009, Munir showed Ray the rap video called ‘Dirty Kuffars’, which is classed as a terrorist publication. On 5 June 2009, Newton gave Simon a disc containing several terrorist publications including lectures from Anwar al-Awlaki.
Later that month, Israr Malik was released from prison. Simon had not seen Israr since before he was jailed in January 2009, and by now he had a shaved head, full beard and was wearing Islamic clothing and seemed to be more intense than before he was jailed.
On 30 June 2009, Munir was speaking to Simon and discussed his time in Afghanistan at length, and talked about firing a rocket launcher. They discussed whether there would be a next time and Munir said there would if Allah required. He spoke about the feeling when a bullet hits the chest, and said: ‘It’s a beautiful feeling you can’t describe it. We’ll go together next time.’
On 6 July 2009, Ray went to Munir’s home and was asked if he wanted to go to Afghanistan. Munir said jihad was not just about giving your life away and they should make sure they took forty to fifty people with them. He also said he wanted to die on the battlefield as a martyr and the time would be soon, before saying he was being watched by MI5.
A conversation recorded between Munir and Israr on 31 July 2009 revealed Malik telling Munir: ‘I wanna die’ and asking for strong lectures to maintain his fervour. Munir gave Mallik a number of publications they listened to. Malik is later heard to say: ‘I have it in me uncle – I just needed jumpstarting – I was like a car, a Ferrari, parked up but no one drove me for a long time, I just needed to rev it up.’
On 19 August, Newton gave Simon an Ipod containing publications, including lectures by al-Awlaki.
The following day, Simon visited Munir at his home and was told to be careful who he spoke to. Munir advised him to use coded language when referring to fighting jihad abroad, as you never knew who was listening. Munir also explained how to use other code words.
On 24 September 2009, Simon and Israr Malik had a conversation, during which he suggested to Simon that they should go abroad to fight jihad, and that he should marry so that when he and Simon went to fight jihad, their wives could be put in touch and support each other. Malik said it would be better to die on the battlefield than get run down by a car on the street, and that he hoped his call for jihad would come soon.
The following month, Munir and Simon had another conversation in which Munir referred to his time in Afghanistan as ‘fun’ and stated ‘you always win’, stating if you died you would be a martyr and if you came home you would also win.
On 19 October, Munir visited Israr Malik in prison after he was arrested for breach of bail, and brought in 32 CDs and 19 booklets and pamphlets with multiple copies of CDs by Shaykh Khalid Yasin – terrorist publications designed to radicalise Malik and other prisoners.
A few days later, Munir sent Ray an email (by this point Ray’s deployment had ended and another undercover officer took up his persona via email) from his
osamawanbe@hotmail.uk account, in which Munir said: ‘I really missed you today, because u always wanted 2 go on HOLIDAY and told in city centre it would start, cant say much more u know why.’
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