(8 May 2014) An Egyptian cleric known for incendiary rhetoric at a London mosque took the stand for a second day at his Manhattan trial Thursday and according to courtroom observers appeared calm, and scholarly during defense questioning. (May 8)
Judge Katherine Forrest and the jury listen as Mustafa Kamel Mustafa, 56, aka Abu Hamza al-Masri, answered question by his defense attorney, Joshua Dratel, about the history of modern Islamic countries, and modern Islamic movements, according to observers.
"He has not used this as a pulpit for prothletising about Jihad," according the Karen Greenberg, Director of the Center on National Security at Fordham Law School.
Greenberg, who has been in the courtroom since the start of the trial, says Mustafa "has backed away from, whenever he has been given the chance, the idea of violence and talked a great deal about religion in a more helpful sense."
On Wednesday, Mustafa countered three weeks of government evidence with answers to rapid-fire questions posed by Dratel when he took the stand for the first time.
"No," Mustafa calmly replied repeatedly as Dratel asked him if he participated in a December 1998 kidnapping in Yemen, tried to organize a jihad training camp in Oregon, aided al-Qaida or sent anyone to Afghanistan to engage in jihad training.
An indictment charges him with conspiring to do all those things.
If convicted, he could face life in prison, a prospect he said he did not fear.
When Dratel asked him if he gave material support to terrorists or provided the Taliban in Afghanistan any goods or services after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, he said: "Never."
"Did you ever aid or abet anyone committing those offenses?" Dratel asked.
"Never, as far as I know," Mustafa said.
His testimony came three weeks into the trial and minutes after the government finished its case on Wednesday afternoon.
Greenberg anticipates a more direct line of questioning by the prosecution during cross examination.
She believes the prosecution will try "to show the extent to which the Jihad he was involved in may have been more violent than what" Mustafa has admitted to.
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