Thursday, August 21, 2008

BBC's Children in Need funded 7/7 terrorist propaganda, says Newsnight

Daily Telegraph 20 August 2008
By Christopher Hope and Duncan Gardham

Thousands of pounds raised by Britons for the BBC’s Children in Need charity could have been used to recruit and train the homegrown terrorists involved in the 7/7 terror attacks on London. Some of the cash could also have been used to fund the propaganda activities of the suicide bombers who killed 52 people in July 2005, according to an investigation by BBC 2’s Newsnight.
The programme reported that £20,000 from Children in Need was handed over to the Leeds Community School, in Beeston, Yorkshire between 1999 and 2002. The school, which also received large sums from other public bodies, was run from premises behind the Iqra Islamic bookshop which the gang used as a meeting place and an opportunity to radicalise others. Both Mohammed Sidique Khan, the leader of the bombers, and Shehzad Tanweer, the Aldgate bomber, were trustees of the bookshop and Sidique Khan also worked for a Saturday club at the associated Leeds Community School.
Both the bookshop and the school were registered charities, the bookshop claimed, on Charity Commission submissions, that its aim was the advancement of the Islamic faith, while the school’s aim was said to be to advance the education of Pakistani and Bangladeshi pupils. They also produced a leaflet in the wake of September 11 blaming the attacks on a Jewish conspiracy.
Glyn Gaskarth, policy analyst at the TaxPayers Alliance, added: It beggars belief that a charity promoted at licence fee payers’ expense paid money to dubious organisations without ensuring they did not have extremist links. People imagine their money goes to genuine good causes, not to organisations apparently frequented by fanatics. There needs to be proper checks and balances in place to make sure no other grants are being given to places peddling extremist views.

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