Rochdale Muslim leader 'was bludgeoned in Isis-inspired murder'
Manchester crown court hears Jalal Uddin was watched for months by two Isis supporters who hated his form of Islam
Jalal Uddin was attacked in a children’s playground on his way home from a mosque, the court heard.
A former imam was bludgeoned to death in a children’s playground by two Islamic State supporters who believed he practised “black magic”, a court has heard.
Jalal Uddin, 71, was murdered by two alleged Islamist extremists who harboured a “hatred and intolerance” of his form of Islam, jurors were told.
The respected community leader was targeted as he made his way home from a mosque in Rochdale, Greater Manchester, after months of being surveilled by his alleged killers, the jury heard.
The accused – Mohammed Hussain Syeedy, 21, and Mohammed Abdul Kadir, 24 – were Isis supporters who developed a hatred of Uddin after discovering he practised a form of Islamic healing called ruqya, jurors were told.
Opening the trial at Manchester crown court, the prosecutor, Paul Greaney QC, told jurors that Syeedy and Kadir “stalked Jalal Uddin around the streets of Rochdale” before Kadir launched a savage attack on the older man in a playground. Kadir unleashed “repeated forceful blows” to Uddin’s head and mouth with a weapon believed to be a hammer, the court heard, leaving him with severe skull fractures.
“These injuries were plainly not the result of a robbery gone wrong,” Greaney said. “On the contrary, they were obviously the result of an attack that was planned – why else did the killer have a hammer with him in a children’s park? – motivated by hatred and by a desire to humiliate Jalal Uddin and undoubtedly intended to kill or, at the very least, cause really serious harm.”
Greaney said the severe blows to Uddin’s mouth were particularly significant. He said: “This was ... an attack driven by hate and the blow to the mouth was quite possibly the most symbolic of all: ‘You will not say anything of which we disapprove.’”
The plot to murder Uddin began earlier this year, the court heard, after his alleged killers spent months conducting surveillance on the former imam while deciding how to “paralyse” his strain of Islam.
Described as “quiet, dignified and well respected,” Uddin wore an amulet – known as a taweez – that some believe to protect the wearer against evil. However, Isis forbids the practice, considering it to be “black magic”, the court heard.
Six months before the killing, Uddin’s books and notes on taweez were stolen from the Jalalia mosque in Rochdale, jurors were told. At the same time, one of Syeedy’s friends sent a text message to the defendant saying he had gone on a “taweez raid” at the mosque. When told his friend had found Uddin’s “stash”, Syeedy replied: “Burn it.”
Jurors were told there was “clear and cogent” evidence that Syeedy and Kadir supported Isis, including reams of jihadi propaganda recovered from Syeedy’s iPhone. Jurors were shown photographs of the 21-year-old, who was born and raised in Rochdale, holding an Isis-style flag outside the Jalalia mosque where his victim prayed. In another, he wore a stab-proof vest outside the mosque. Other photographs showed Syeedy and two others holding a jihadi flag over a road sign in Rochdale that had been altered to read: “War Zone.”
On Syeedy’s laptop, detectives found a poster saying “Don’t wear taweez” and the message “Whoever wears an amulet has committed shirk,” the jury heard. Shirk is a sin of practising idolatry, the jury was told.
As their hatred of Uddin grew, Syeedy and his associates plotted to have the Bangladeshi-born community leader deported by immigration services. However, that plan was abandoned after a photograph emerged of Uddin with the Rochdale MP, Simon Danczuk, outside the Jalalia mosque in December last year.
Their hostility towards Uddin escalated that month when Kadir and others discussed killing him. In a Facebook message, Kadir wrote: “Exposing their Kufir [disbeliever] isn’t sufficient as there are tooo many of them soo we may do what ever to paralyse them in sha Allah starting from the ring leader we know” – a reference, the crown says, to Uddin.
Kadir added: “Soo please do made dua [prayers] that this happens and we do it in a systematic way so that we do not get caught.”
Syeedy sat alone in the dock as the court heard that his co-accused was on the run – possibly in Syria – after catching a flight to Istanbul, via Copenhagen, three days after the killing on 18 February.
Jurors were told Syeedy accepted Kadir murdered Uddin and that he was with his accomplice before and after the killing. However, he will deny that he knew anything about the murder beforehand or that he supports Isis.
The trial continues.
