Radical Lebanon cleric Omar Bakri sentenced to life in jail

Omar Bakri, who was sentenced on charges including inciting murder, says he would "not spend one day" behind bars.

TRIPOLI: Radical Islamic preacher Omar Bakri, who was sentenced to life in prison in Lebanon on charges including inciting murder, told AFP on Friday he would "not spend one day" behind bars.

"I will not hand myself in to any court. I do not believe in the law in Britain as in Lebanon," Bakri, who lived in Britain for 20 years, told AFP at his home in the northern coastal city of Tripoli a day after the verdict.

"I have 15 days to appeal the verdict," he said, adding that he would "not spend one day in prison."

Bakri, a Sunni Muslim who has praised the September 11, 2001 attacks and hailed the hijackers as the "magnificent 19," was sentenced to life in prison by a Lebanese military court on Thursday.

The 50-year-old was found guilty, along with more than 40 other Lebanese as well as Palestinians, Syrians and Saudis, of "incitement to murder, theft and the possession of arms and explosives."

The charge sheet, which was posted on the door of Lebanon's justice ministry, said Bakri and 22 other fundamentalist Sunnis were "sentenced to life in prison in absentia... for belonging to an armed faction with the intent to commit crimes and undermine state authority."

The remaining defendants, some of whom appeared in court, were sentenced to jail terms of between three months and seven years, capping a trial that began three years ago.

Syrian-born Bakri, who holds Lebanese nationality, failed to show up in court on Thursday for sentencing.

He told AFP that he had not been formally told that the court would issue a verdict and insisted he was innocent.

It was not immediately clear if or when he would be arrested.

Bakri also said he had called on his followers in Britain, Australia and Pakistan to "mobilise the global media" to resort to a trial in a religious rather than a military court, and denied that he had any ties to al Qaeda.

"I have no ties to al Qaeda, direct or indirect, other than the fact that I believe in the same ideology," he said at his home in Tripoli's Abi Samra neighbourhood, a hub for radical groups.

Bakri was banned from Britain in 2005 as part of the government's measures following the London underground and bus bombings that year.
The cleric sparked outrage in Britain in the wake of the bombings for saying he would not hand over to police Muslims planning to launch attacks.

He has also called Britain's former prime minister John Major and Russia's former president Vladimir Putin "legitimate targets."

Upon his arrival in Beirut in 2005, Bakri was detained by Lebanese authorities but was freed one day later. No charges were pressed against him at the time.

Born in 1960 to a wealthy Syrian family, Omar Bakri began studying Islam at the age of five and at 15 joined the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood.

He later abandoned the Brotherhood and joined Lebanon's Hizb ut-Tahrir, a movement that aimed to join all Islamic states under one caliphate.

The Sunni cleric split with Hizb ut-Tahrir in 1983 and founded his own group, Al-Muhajirun, in Jeddah that year.

When Bakri was expelled from Saudi Arabia in 1986, he moved to Britain and gained a following as a preacher there before his expulsion. Al-Muhajirun has also been proscribed under the UK Terrorism Act 2000.

Bakri has two wives, British and Lebanese, and seven children. He is expecting an eighth child with his Lebanese wife.