Video reveals Ujaama's vision for Islamic state

Seattle terrorism suspect James Ujaama envisioned a perfect Islamic state, where believers could live separately from Christians and Jews, attend military training camps, and where homosexuality and pornography would be outlawed.

The place: Afghanistan.

"There are many Muslims who have forgotten that the Jews and Christians are our enemies," Ujaama says in a 2-½-hour video obtained by The Seattle Times, small portions of which were recently revealed on the Internet.

The video, shot sometime before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, gives the first public glimpse into Ujaama's beliefs as told in his own words, and tells of at least one of his trips to Afghanistan. It also provides a look at his association with Abu Hamza, whom federal prosecutors in the United States have targeted for indictment on terrorism charges.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Andrew Hamilton, lead prosecutor in the Ujaama case, said yesterday that he had not viewed the videotape. But from descriptions given to him by investigators, "We anticipate (it) will have significant evidentiary value," he said.

At least one thing Ujaama says, however, casts doubt on an assertion made by prosecutors: that Ujaama traveled to Afghanistan to attend an al-Qaida training camp.

In the video, Ujaama doesn't say why he went, but he states he did not attend jihad training.

"I wish I had," he says.

Prosecutors contend that Ujaama may have made other trips to Afghanistan, including at least one days before the Sept. 11 attacks to deliver computers to the Taliban. That trip would have been after the video was shot.

Ujaama lawyer Peter Offenbecher said yesterday that prosecutors have yet to produce evidence showing that Ujaama traveled there for anything other than to deliver laptops to an Afghan girls school. Ujaama asserts in the video that it was a myth that women were oppressed under Taliban rule and received no education.

Offenbecher reserved further comment until he could review the tape but said, "to the extent it confirms that he did not go to jihad training is consistent" with evidence that he went to Afghanistan for charitable purposes.

Ujaama has been indicted on a federal firearms charge and a charge of conspiring to provide material support to terrorists. The charges center on his alleged attempt to start a jihad training camp in rural Oregon in 1999. Abu Hamza is one of three unnamed and uncharged co-conspirators in the indictment, according to federal sources.

A former community activist here, Ujaama moved to London and lived with his wife and daughter near Abu Hamza's Finsbury Park mosque, which has become a fertile recruiting ground for terrorists, according to federal authorities.

The video was shot inside the mosque at a forum entitled "Afghanistan, Return to Islam." The date on the title card is given as May 21, but without a year. However, material discussed suggests it was recorded in 2000 or 2001, before the terror attacks.

Ujaama, in an impassioned speech, introduces the conference and its featured speaker Abu Hamza. He then joins the cleric in answering questions from the audience of about 50 people seated on the carpeted floor.

Ujaama and Abu Hamza, seated at a small table next to each other, paint a picture of an ideal, worldwide Islamic state, beginning in Afghanistan, and urge Muslims to move there, build villages, attend military training camps and support the Taliban government.

"This conference is for the benefit of those who are fed up with life here among the kafir (nonbelievers), and fed up with supporting the kafir, and who want to (move away from) the kafir," Ujaama says.

"Because when you're walking down the street and you see billboards that are full of nudity, how can you have a happy life, with this type of glorified prostitution and where they legalize homosexuality."

Ujaama says that on his own visit to Afghanistan he witnessed a society free of the obscenities of the West.

"I make no compromise and do not apologize whatsoever that I have been in Afghanistan and saw Islam being implemented there, and what I saw I liked," he says.

Afghanistan, he says, "is the only country in the world to have shariah (God's revealed law), therefore it is compulsory for all Muslims to help Afghanistan and (visit or settle there)."

At least one person appears to have heeded Ujaama's message.

A 22-year-old British citizen, Feroz Abbasi, one of 598 captured Taliban fighters at Guantánamo Bay, has told authorities he met Ujaama in spring 2000 at the Finsbury Park mosque.

Federal sources say Ujaama accompanied Abbasi to Afghanistan and set him up in an al-Qaida camp. U.S. troops captured Abbasi in December 2001 during heavy fighting near al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden's headquarters in Kandahar.

In another part of the video, Ujaama declares that Muslim leaders around the world have been framed and wrongly convicted by Christian and Jewish judges and the news media.

Among his examples were Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin, a Muslim convert formerly known as H. Rap Brown who was arrested in 2000 and later convicted of killing a police officer in Georgia; Omar Abdel-Rahman, a blind sheik convicted in 1995 of conspiring to blow up various New York City landmarks; and bin Laden.

At one point in the video, Ujaama turns to Abu Hamza and adjusts the microphone for the cleric, who lost his hands while making a bomb in Bosnia, according to the intelligence sources.

The video was one of six obtained by The Times from a man in England who claims to have infiltrated Hamza's circle by posing as a supporter. He asked not to be identified. Ujaama is seen in only one tape.

Ray Rivera: 206-464-2926 or rayrivera@seattletimes.com.