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The activist is accused of providing credentials to two suicide bombers.
©Associated Press
© St. Petersburg Times, published October 31, 2001
LONDON -- An Egyptian activist was charged Tuesday with providing journalist credentials to suicide bombers who killed the military chief of Afghanistan's opposition alliance.
Yasser el-Sirri, 39, was the first person charged in connection with the assassination of Ahmed Shah Massood, the legendary battle leader of the Northern Alliance.
Two men posing as journalists -- allegedly using a letter of accreditation el-Sirri gave them -- detonated a bomb hidden in their camera while they interviewed Massood in his northern Afghanistan headquarters on Sept. 9. Massood was fatally wounded and both of the bombers were killed.
Massood's death deprived the Afghan opposition of its best strategist and one of the movement's few figures capable of uniting broad sectors of Afghan society.
In an interview with an Arabic newspaper before his arrest, el-Sirri said he wrote the letter but thought the men were legitimate journalists.
At a hearing in Belmarsh Magistrates' Court on Tuesday, el-Sirri listened closely to an interpreter as the charges against him were read, speaking only to confirm his name.
District Judge Timothy Workman rejected a bail request and scheduled another hearing for Nov. 7.
El-Sirri, who has said his Islamic Observation Center focuses on defending human rights, was also accused of soliciting support for a banned organization, the Egyptian radical group al-Gamaa al-Islamiyya.
Prosecutors also alleged he raised funds for terrorism, stirred up racial hatred -- he allegedly published 3,000 copies of a book advocating the killing of Jews -- and made property available for the purposes of terrorism.
El-Sirri's arrest under the Terrorism Act was not directly linked to the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States, police said.
The diminutive, balding el-Sirri is well-known among journalists in Britain and beyond, who would often call him for a radical Islamic perspective. His quotable responses made their way into many news accounts.
But British and Egyptian authorities say he was involved in more than public relations.
In 1994, El-Sirri was sentenced to death in absentia in Egypt, where security officials allege he was in the upper echelons of the military wing of Islamic Jihad, the terrorist group blamed for the 1981 assassination of President Anwar Sadat. "It's an honor that I don't deserve," he told the Associated Press shortly before his arrest.
Massood, a veteran guerrilla commander renowned for his prowess against the former Soviet Union, was the symbol of opposition to Afghanistan's ruling Taliban.
Massood was defense minister in the government of Burhanuddin Rabbani until both were ousted in 1996 by Taliban troops. He moved quickly to rally warring factions against the Taliban, forming an alliance that has fought for five years to prevent the Taliban from gaining full control of Afghanistan.
In an interview before his arrest, el-Sirri denied involvement in Massood's death. Camille Tawil, a reporter with the London Arabic newspaper Al Hayat, said el-Sirri told him he was shocked by the news.
"He condemned what happened," Tawil said. "He said (the death of Massood) is a loss to Afghanistan."
El-Sirri confirmed he had written a letter of introduction for two men who wanted to do an interview in Afghanistan, but said he didn't know them, according to Tawil.
"He said he did write a letter 'To whom it may concern,' " Tawil said. "And he said: 'I didn't know these two people were going to kill someone.' "