Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
A radical cleric charged with inciting the murder of Jews and other non-Muslims took the stand Thursday and said British security officials had told him his sermons did not break the law.
Abu Hamza al-Masri, the former leader of a mosque attended by alleged Sept. 11 plotter Zacarias Moussaoui and “shoe bomber” Richard Reid, said he had several meetings with British security officials between 1997 and 2000–the period in which prosecutors say he committed the crimes.
“I asked them, `Is my sermon a problem?’ They said, `You have freedom of speech,”‘ said al-Masri.
Al-Masri, 47, faces a maximum sentence of life in prison if convicted.
He has pleaded not guilty to all 15 charges.
