By Amir Taheri
Arab News
February 18, 2006

For almost two weeks this month the British media had a field day with the trial of Abu Hamza Al-Masri, an Egyptian-born self-styled Islamic “scholar” charged with a number of violent crimes.

The trial ended with Abu Hamza being sentenced to five years imprisonment, which means he could be out in two and a half years.

Dubbed “The Hook” by the media because, having lost his hands when caught in a minefield in Afghanistan two decades ago, he wears hook-like prosthetic, Abu Hamza is sure to feel sore at the way he has been treated in his adopted homeland.

And he may well be right.

To start with if Abu Hamza, regarded by many as a buffoon, is such a deadly threat to Britain, indeed to civilization as a whole, why is he getting away with such a light sentence?

It is hard to guess what might be passing through someone like Abu Hamza’s confused mind. But if he were to replay the film of his life in Britain in his mind he might come up with a few questions.

Abu Hamza fled Egypt and arrived in Britain on a tourist visa at the age of 22.

The first question he might now want to ask is: How come they gave me a visa when they knew I had a criminal record in Egypt?

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