Abdullah el-Faisal

On the 25 August 2017, he was arrested in Jamaica after US officers caught him allegedly trying to recruit jihadis in an undercover sting operation. According to the Manhattan district attorney, he offered to help an undercover officer travel to the Middle East and join ISIL and is now in custody in Jamaica awaiting extradition to the USA.

In his book Ticking Time Bomb: Counter-Terrorism Lessons from the U.S. Government's Failure to Prevent the Fort Hood Attack (2011), former U.S. Senator Joe Lieberman described Australian Muslim preacher Feiz Mohammad, American-Yemeni imam Anwar al-Awlaki, el-Faisal, and Pakistani-American Samir Khan as "virtual spiritual sanctioners" who use the internet to offer religious justification for terrorism.

He was deported from Kenya on 7 January 2010 to the West African nation of Gambia, which agreed to accept el-Faisal at his request. But as he was being transported through Nigeria, Nigerian authorities refused to grant him a transit visa and instead sent him back to Kenya on 10 January 2010. The Gambian government also indicated it would not grant him entry.

Several hundred people demonstrated on 8 January 2010, protesting the "unfair" treatment of el-Faisal. On 15 January, police in Nairobi were summoned to block a protest march by several hundred people, some of whom were waving the flag of Somali Islamist terrorist group al Shabaab. Some angry residents threw stones at the marchers. The following day at least five people died in demonstrations after Friday prayers at Jami'a Mosque.

He was deported from Kenya on a private plane (at a cost in excess of $523,000), and on 22 January 2010 arrived back in Jamaica. There, he was questioned by Special Branch investigators who made it clear that he had not broken any laws in Jamaica, but that the police wanted to make sure they knew where and how to find him "because of the international attention he has received." The Islamic Council of Jamaica banned him from preaching at any of its 12 mosques, but he is permitted to worship there. In 2017 he continued releasing public statements in support of the Islamic State.

El-Faisal was allowed entry to Kenya on 24 December 2009, due to a computer error. He was arrested by anti-terror police in Mombasa on New Year's Eve 2009. Attempts by Kenya to deport him were initially unsuccessful because of his involvement in terrorist activities. He was unable to reach Jamaica, which had said it would accept him, because South Africa, the U.K., the U.S., and Tanzania all declined to issue him transit visas that would allow him to connect to flights to Jamaica.

In June 2008, he was preaching in South Africa. He reportedly traveled by road through various countries in Africa including Nigeria, Angola, Malawi, Swaziland, Mozambique, Botswana, and Tanzania before entering Kenya.

El-Faisal was sentenced to nine years in prison, of which he served four years before being deported to Jamaica in 2007. He subsequently traveled to Africa, but was deported from Botswana in 2009 and from Kenya back to Jamaica in January 2010.

Upon being eligible for parole, el-Faisal was released from prison, deported to Jamaica, and permanently banned from the UK on 25 May 2007. He remained on an international watch list. Andrew Dismore, a Labour Member of Parliament, noted that deportation might not adequately address the risks posed by el-Faisal, saying: "Once he's deported to Jamaica, what restrictions will there be to prevent him spreading his message of hate over the Internet?" He is said to preach extremists views online at paltalk chat rooms and associated with the authentic tawheed website.

In addition, two of the four accused 2005 7/7 suicide bombers, Muhammad Sidique Khan, responsible for the Edgware Road blast that killed 6 people, and Jamaican-born Briton Germaine Lindsay, responsible for the blast that killed 26 people at King's Cross tube station, were followers of El-Faisal. In an interview with the BBC in June 2008, he admitted knowing Germaine Lindsay but insisted he had not radicalized him.

In a May 2005 online posting under the name "farouk1986," Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the suspected Christmas Day 2009 Flight 253 bomber, referred to El-Faisal, writing: "i thought once they are arrested, no one hears about them for life and the keys to their prison wards are thrown away. That’s what I heard sheikh faisal of UK say (he has also been arrested i heard)."

On 17 February 2004, el-Faisal lost an appeal of his conviction. While in prison, he attempted to improve conditions, saying: "if you're a cleric, you have to set an example for other Muslim prisoners to follow, and you're not supposed to crack under pressure." He ended up serving four years.

After a four-week trial at the Old Bailey, el-Faisal was found guilty by a jury of six men and six women on 24 February 2003 of: (a) three charges of soliciting the murder of Jews, Americans, Hindus, and Christians; and (b) two charges of using threatening words to stir up racial hatred, in tapes of speeches to his followers. He was the first Muslim cleric to be tried in the UK.

El-Faisal was sentenced on 7 March 2003 to nine years in prison. He received seven years for soliciting murder, 12 months to run concurrently for using threatening words with intent to stir up racial hatred, and a further two years (to run consecutively) for distributing threatening recordings with intent to stir up racial hatred. Old Bailey judge Peter Beaumont delivered the sentence. He said el-Faisal had "fanned the flames of hostility", and told him: "As the jury found, you not only preached hate, but the words you uttered in those meetings were recorded to reach a wider audience. You urged those who listened and watched to kill those who did not share your faith." The judge suggested that el-Faisal serve at least half his sentence, and then be deported.

In February 2002, El-Faisal's tapes were purchased by an undercover police officer at an Islamic bookshop at 62 Brick Lane in London and seized under a search warrant at Zam Zam Bookshop at 388 Green Street in East Ham and at his home at 104 Albert Square in Stratford. He was arrested on 18 February 2002.

Prosecutors said he preached to 2001 shoe bomber Richard Reid and 9/11 plotter Zacarias Moussaoui.

El-Faisal was sent to the United Kingdom to preach by Sheikh Raji. He returned to the UK in 1991, became the imam at the Salafi Brixton Mosque in South London, began preaching to crowds of up to 500 people at the mosque and at Brixton Town Hall. He married his second wife, Pakistani-British biology graduate Zubeida Khan whom he met months after his arrival, in 1992, thereby acquiring rights of residence. This meant he had two wives, as his first marriage was still extant. In 1993, el-Faisal was ejected by Brixton Mosque's administration who objected to his radical preaching.

Starting in 1984, El-Faisal studied Islam for seven years on a Saudi government scholarship at the Imam Muhammad ibn Saud Islamic University in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

He began using the name Abdullah el-Faisal shortly after graduating Maldon in 1980, and changed it legally in 1983. In 1981, in Trinidad, he took a six-week course in Islamic and Arabic studies sponsored by the Saudi Arabian government. He left Jamaica in 1983 for Guyana where he studied Arabic and Islam for a year. He then moved to Saudi Arabia where he studied at Imam Muhammad Ibn Saud Muhammad university of Riyadh and then moved to the UK later in the 1980s.

Abdullah el-Faisal (born Trevor William Forrest, also known as Abdullah al-Faisal, Sheikh Faisal, Sheik Faisal, and Imam Al-Jamaikee, born 10 September 1963) is a Salafi Muslim cleric who preached in the United Kingdom until he was convicted of stirring up racial hatred and urging his followers to murder Jews, Hindus, Christians, and Americans.