FLASHBACK: UK documentary from 2002 exposed the terrorist ties the Finsbury Mosque had with Al Qaeda and the WTC attack

Abu Hamza al-Masri has been found guilty of supporting terrorism by a court in New York and sentenced to life in prison. But who is the man who became the most prominent radical cleric in the United Kingdom?



Born Mustafa Kamel Mustafa in Alexandria, Egypt, on 15 April 1958, Abu Hamza was the son of a naval officer and a primary school headmistress. He initially studied civil engineering before leaving for England in 1979.


In London, one of his first jobs was as a nightclub bouncer. He married a British woman who he says encouraged him to embrace Islam.


"I took time off from the clubs and I enjoyed it," he said at his trial in the US.


He decided to resume his studies at Brighton Polytechnic and gained a civil engineering degree, joining the Institution of Civil Engineers where he remained a member until 1994.


His marriage rapidly broke down but he later remarried and had seven children.


Jihad call


One of Abu Hamza's first major engineering contracts took him to the Royal Military Training Academy at Sandhurst. Technical drawings of the college were still in his home when he was arrested in 2004.


In the early 1980s the young Abu Hamza started to show an interest in Islam and politics. He was heavily influenced by the Iranian revolution.


Some Muslim thinkers were calling for Islamic states in Islamic lands. They had a military face in the Mujahideen fighters who, backed by the US, emerged to oppose the Soviet Union's occupation of Afghanistan.