Florida Mosque Hosted Mujahideen, Jihad Preacher
Charles Johnson
Fri Jun 1, 2007 at 11:42 am PDT • Views: 446
Once again we find an American mosque at the center of terrorist recruitment and ideology, as an ex-con testifies that alleged Al Qaeda operative Jose Padilla became radicalized at a Florida mosque: Ex-con tells of talks at Florida mosque.
The Associated Press doesn’t tell us which mosque, of course, and it’s a pretty safe bet there will be no journalistic investigations into it.
MIAMI - An ex-convict testified Thursday that he knew suspected al-Qaida operative Jose Padilla and a purported terrorism supporter while attending a Florida mosque, and that he considered becoming a fighter himself for Islamic groups overseas.
Herbert Atwell, 38, said Adham Amin Hassoun frequently gave speeches at the mosque in the late 1990s about Muslim causes and sought to raise money and identify recruits. Hassoun also brought in mujahedeen from Chechnya, Palestine and elsewhere in the world to talk to men at the mosque, Atwell said.
“He would talk about giving to mujahedeen fighters all the time,” Atwell testified. “At a certain point in time, the brothers didn’t want him to get on the podium any more, because it was the same message over and over and over.” …
Atwell testified that he remembered Padilla — one of Hassoun’s recruits, prosecutors contend — from the mosque because he carried a Spanish version of the Quran. Where Hassoun was loquacious, Padilla rarely spoke at all, Atwell said.
“He was very quiet. Very focused on Islam,” he testified.
Frank says: