UK Muslim Cleric Denies Inciting Followers to Kill

LONDON (Reuters) - A London-based Muslim cleric, accused of urging followers to kill non-believers in a holy war against the rest of the world, told police his teachings came straight from the Koran, a jury was told Thursday.

Jamaican-born Sheikh Abdullah el-Faisal, 39, denies five charges of incitement to murder by encouraging others to kill "enemies of Islam." He could face life imprisonment if convicted.

Faisal, based in central London, is also charged with stirring up racial hatred through use of threatening and abusive words and with video and audio tapes in the four years before his arrest last year.

Thursday, the jury at London's Old Bailey court was played a tape of Faisal's interview with police officers after his arrest in which he said he was not a racist and only quoted from the Koran.

"I'm not inciting them. My students have never harmed anyone. I cannot understand where you are coming from," Faisal said during the interview with Detective Sgt. Ray Durrant.

Durrant then quoted passages from some of Faisal's tapes and asked him about the content.

"So you want to go to Jenna (paradise). It is easy just to kill a Kafer (non-believer). You are encouraging people to kill," Durrant asked Faisal.

"By you killing the Kafer, you have purchased your ticket to paradise. You are asking for people to put their hands up and volunteer?"

Faisal replied that this was "only in a combat situation" and that his message was that people should only kill in self defense.

When asked about a passage in one tape when he said the best way to terrorize a non-believer was to exterminate them, Faisal said again that he was only quoting from the Koran.

He said that he preached what he had he learned at university in Saudi Arabia while studying to become a religious leader and that his words had been taken out of context.

Earlier in the trial, the prosecution said Faisal had encouraged young Muslims to kill Hindus, Jews and Americans, with chemical and nuclear weapons if necessary, through tapes entitled "No Peace with the Jews," "Declaration of War" and "Jihad."

In one video tape played earlier, he could be heard saying: "You can use chemical weapons to exterminate the non-believer. If you have cockroaches in your house would you spray them? Yes, with chemicals. If you would spray the cockroach, spray the Hindu."

He could also be heard promising young Muslim men that their martyrdom in the Jihad, or Holy War, would be rewarded in paradise with 72 virgins.