‘Strewth, no,’ he said. ‘There are about forty mosques and Islamic centres in the borough. So we headed for the main one first – the East London Mosque, one of the biggest in Europe. Turns out lots of celebs have been there – Prince Charles included. They’ve also had their share of hate preachers.’
Shiv told us about the old Pakistani man who had revealed that Hazari had once been a regular there but had left because it wasn’t radical enough for him. He’d given them the address of the small masjid in Hackney which, he said, had links to Jamaat-e-Islami, a fundamentalist party in Bangladesh. Shiv said the man gave them the info because he was upset with Hazari for bringing trouble to the Muslim community.
Juggs described the terrible conditions they had found in Tower Hamlets – poverty, unemployment and overcrowded homes. ‘That makes it a real breeding ground for radicalism,’ he said. ‘But, strangely, it’s also a lively area that combines bits of the old East End from the days of the Krays, with the sights and smells of the sub-continent. They don’t call it Banglatown for nothing!’
I was getting impatient. ‘Mate, enough of the guided tour – what about Hazari? Did you get any good stuff on him?’
‘Damn right, we did,’ Shiv said. ‘Good stuff. Let me see …’ she flipped her notebook open. ‘He was born here, the son of young immigrants who came to Britain in 1971 from the Sylhet region to escape the political upheaval during the Bangladesh Liberation War, when the country sought independence from Pakistan. The family still lives in Shoreditch.’
‘Did you track them down?’
She nodded. ‘A taxi driver gave us the address – for a very healthy tip, by the way. A high rise in Shoreditch, not far from Green Spring Academy where young Ghulam went to school. Me and Juggs went to the flat. Not bad really, well kept. Not a sticky-carpet job.’
‘What the heck does that mean?’ The Meerkat looked puzzled. I explained that reporters often went to homes of socially deprived people or druggies where the carpet – if there was one – was tacky from fluids, either body or booze; it would lift up when you raised your foot.
‘The parents seem pretty respectable but refused to speak to us,’ Shiv continued. ‘But a neighbour told us that Hazari no longer lives there. According to him, our boy left some time ago.’
‘Anything else?’ We needed more – a lot more – if we were going to scoop the other papers.
‘Hey, I’m insulted that you should ask! I’ve got loads, mostly from the neighbour. Why don’t I go away and write it up and you’ll see why a nice, popular young guy who liked Western culture became a twisted, murdering jihadist. And then, boys and girls, I am going home to have a stiff drink and a long sleep.’ Her tiny frame was still bundled up in thick clothes – fur-trimmed parka, riding boots and a woollen beanie hat that mostly concealed her fiery red hair. It reminded me how she had been beavering away in the wintry conditions outside for hours. As if to underline the point, she was clasping a huge Starbucks coffee with both hands that were still shaking slightly from the cold.
‘You deserve it,’ I said. ‘But before you go, here’s the million-dollar question: did you get any new pics? The one the police gave us is crap.’ The answer would make or break our front page.
Now it was Juggs’s turn to smile: ‘Yes, boss. Exclusive. A bargain at a mere hundred quid.’ He took out a small matt print from the folder on the table in front of him and handed it to me. There were two young men in the photograph grinning wildly at the camera. Late teens by the look of them. One had his arm around the other’s shoulder. Both were wearing West Ham United scarves.
‘Which one’s Hazari?’ asked Griffo, who had come over to look at the snap.
‘The lad on the left.’ Juggs pointed. ‘The other one is the neighbour’s son.’
I peered at the photo. ‘You were right, Shiv, he doesn’t look the part.’ In fact, the lad had the glossy good looks of a Bollywood star: clean-cut, regular features, white teeth brilliant against his brown skin. And he looked happy. There were no tell-tale signs that this young lad had sufficient rage in his head and evil in his heart for him to walk calmly up to a lovely young woman on the street and cold-bloodedly cut her throat.
‘Are you sure this is the right guy?’ I asked. ‘In the police CCTV grab he has a wispy sort of beard.’
Juggs nodded. ‘Hundred per cent.’ The boys were at school together and the neighbour claims he saw Hazari all the time.’
Shiv said: ‘And don’t forget, we have stills of Hazari attacking Morgan from the video that Cornelius Van der Meer gave us. The cops won’t mind us using them now. Bit dodgy but at least they’re exclusive.’
‘Good idea,’ I said. ‘Was anyone else sniffing around while you were there?’
‘The police had been to the parents’ place. A few times, by all accounts. But no media as yet. Won’t take the others long.’
‘Boss, we took the usual precaution of holing up the neighbour at a nearby hotel for a couple of nights,’ Griffo said. ‘His name’s Ayas Rahman. Promised him another grand. But Shiv has already got enough from him to write a splash and an inside colour piece for tomorrow’s centre spread.’
I sat back and smiled. It was a bargain, right enough. UKT, like most of the national tabloids, spent millions of pounds each year on buying stories and pictures from agencies, freelancers and members of the public. I remembered Percy Mimms telling me on my first day as a reporter at the Sunday World in Sydney, ‘Son, a newspaper stands or falls, lives or dies by the number of exclusives it runs. Any damn thing that beats the crap out of the competition.’
I gave a thumbs-up to Griffo. ‘Worth every bloody penny, mate.’
32
PORTRAIT OF IZZY’S KILLER
How a ‘likeable lad’ from East London turned into an evil jihadi
By Shiv O’Shea, Chief Reporter
The laughing schoolboy in the picture above was a normal teenager who loved football, video games and Dr Who. His favourite film was The Dark Knight.
Ghulam Hazari was a bright, popular ‘likeable lad’ with a great future ahead of him. He was handsome, with flashing white teeth set against his dark skin. But just a few weeks after the photo was taken, a shocking incident transformed Ghulam Hazari, now 26, into a hard-core Islamic jihadist who allegedly murdered a gay activist and a young princess.
The trigger for Hazari’s rapid radicalisation happened when the second-generation Bangladeshi immigrant from Tower Hamlets in East London was just 17. He and a school friend, both ardent West Ham supporters, went to watch their team play Millwall FC in a Football League Cup match at Upton Park in August, 2009. The rivalry between the two teams, also known as the ‘Dockers Derby’, is one of the longest and most bitter in British football. Violence has broken out occasionally between the fans ever since the 1976 death of a Millwall supporter.
In 2009, Hazari and his friend were caught up in a riot at the West Ham ground, when widespread disorder between hundreds of rival supporters led to numerous injuries before the match even began. The Tower Hamlets teenagers, wearing West Ham scarves, were surrounded by members of the notorious Millwall Bushwackers ‘firm’ chanting racist slogans. Hazari was stabbed in the chest and badly beaten. The blade narrowly missed slicing his aorta.
His best friend escaped unhurt and his father, Mr Ayas Rahman, told UKT, ‘I remember Ghulam was quite badly injured. They took him to hospital and he was in there for some weeks. He had always been such a likeable lad growing up but, when he came out, he was different.’
To understand Hazari’s transition from happy-go-lucky schoolboy to an accused stone-cold killer, we need to look at the environment and circumstances in which he grew up. The Borough of Tower Hamlets, in particular Spitalfields and Brick Lane (also known as Banglatown) roughly corresponds to what was known as London’s ‘East End’. It is home to just over 300,000 residents, of which more than a third are Muslim, and the majority of whom have Bangladeshi origins.
The result is a colourful melting pot of
multicultural, social and religious diversity. But the flip side is an area with serious deprivation, unemployment and health issues. The borough has the worst record of child poverty in Britain.
Most Bengalis came to Britain for economic opportunities but others came for political reasons after the bloody war of independence in Bangladesh in 1971. Ghulam Hazari’s father, Yusuf, was a political refugee. He fled to Britain in mid-1971 and settled in Spitalfields before his arranged marriage to the daughter of a local textile worker, also a Bengali immigrant, in 1976. They had four children – daughter Vanu and sons Manik, Abdur and Ghulam. They lived in a tidy three-bedroom high-rise apartment in Diss Street just a few hundred yards from Brick Lane.
The sons went to a local school – Green Spring Academy in Gosset Street. Not much is known about Ghulam Hazari’s much older three siblings but a teacher, who did not wish to be named, said this about the future terrorist: ‘Ghulam excelled at his studies and was expected to go on to university. He was gifted and charming. He did not show any radical tendencies while here, indeed the opposite: I seem to remember him questioning the legitimacy of some of the Koran teachings in the modern world.’
The turning point for Hazari’s metamorphosis into a jihadi terrorist seems to have been during a lengthy stay in Bangladesh where Yusuf sent him to recover from his injuries after his discharge from hospital. Still just 17, Ghulam lived with his father’s extended family in a small village and attended a local madrasa that had an affiliation with Jamaat-e-Islami. A leading Bangladeshi journalist, Shahriar Kabir, described Jamaat as ‘the Godfather of all terrorism’.
When he returned home three years later, neighbours noticed a marked change in his dress and demeanour.
Mr Rahman said: ‘I did not recognise him at first. He had a beard and wore traditional clothes – pujaba kurta pajama, sandals and tupi (skull cap). There was also an anger in him that was not there before. I know that he had become more devout. He went often to his mosque to pray.’
Another neighbour, who did not want to be named, said that he understood Hazari had been heavily influenced by the Imam of the tiny mosque he frequented, a shadowy figure that few in the neighbourhood I talked to seemed to know much about. ‘His name, I think, is Abul Mostafa. He is Pakistani, not Bangladeshi. Some say he has something to do with ISIS but I do not know for sure,’ the neighbour said.
A police source told me they had been to the mosque in Constantinople Street since the attack on Princess Izzy but it was all locked up. He refused to confirm or deny whether Mostafa was known to them, or if he was suspected of being implicated in the plots to attack Princess Izzy and Hugo Morgan, the LGBTQI leader murdered earlier this year.
Hazari’s steps towards radicalisation accelerated when he left home in 2014 and joined the London-based Young Muslim Organisation, which has links to Jamaat-e-Islami. There Hazari was exposed to the teachings, directly and indirectly, of many extremist preachers and firebrand clerics whose disciples are known to promote ISIS throughout the UK.
At this time, Hazari appears to have increasingly rejected Western values. His movements from then on are shrouded in mist until he emerged into the streetlights of Kensington in September this year and killed Hugo Morgan in cold blood. The smiling schoolboy had come a long way in the seven years since the day seven years before when he was stabbed by racist thugs at a football match. And the relentless indoctrination which followed that shocking incident helped to turn the bright, British-born citizen into a man accused of being a ruthless killer of ‘kuffars’ (unbelievers).
Until his alleged act of terror against the gay activist, Hazari had not been known to the police. He had no record of criminal or hateful behaviour and he was not seen to be homophobic or anti-western. But an MI6 source told UKT that the anti-terrorism authorities had put a flag on his file last year. She said they believed he had gone to Syria for training by Islamic State and had returned a few months ago to help raise funds and recruit jihadis for the terror group. ‘We understand he met his Somali accomplice in the Syrian training camp and they formed a cell when they came back separately to London,’ she said. ‘We now know the Somali’s name is Axmed Yusuf Qaasim.’
Islamic State has claimed responsibility for Hazari’s two atrocities and sources say that it is quite possible he could already be on route back to Syria or Bangladesh using a different identity. Or he could still be here in the UK plotting another attack.
Meanwhile ‘Banglatown’ in London’s East End is keeping its head down. The Bangladeshi community in Tower Hamlets is appalled by Hazari’s violent acts against Princess Izzy and Hugo Morgan.
Local councillor Iskander Ershad told UKT: ‘We are shocked and saddened by this man’s foul deeds. We are a peaceful, law-abiding people and have no tolerance for these extremists. They are a blight on the Bangladeshis who are working hard to make a new life here in Britain. We just want to live in peace.’
33
IT WAS just after eight pm and all the pages for the first edition, including Shiv’s backgrounder on Ghulam Hazari, were subbed, lawyered and on their way to the presses. The front page was excellent: we had blown up our exclusive headshot of Hazari to full-page size and superimposed the UKT masthead on it. A comparatively small headline underneath his head said: ‘This is the grinning face of Princess Izzy’s brutal murderer.’ A little wordier than usual but, combined with the pic, it did the trick.
By now the early evening roar of the newsroom had reduced to a dull murmur. Sometimes, I fancied, a tabloid is a savage beast, a nocturnal predator – lithe, muscular, slumbering gently in the early part of the day before stirring into action at dusk when it comes truly alive: a creative cauldron fuelled by a mix of testosterone, controlled chaos and jugular journalism.
You really should go home to your family, I told myself. But I was relishing the opportunity of having some quiet time to think. The back office was quiet too; had been all day. All week, come to think of it. It had been a crazy time for the journalists but Martha and the other managers were still enjoying their holiday break. Ditto their staff. Bolshy’s henchman Carlos Macrae was also mercifully MIA. I wondered if that creepy bastard actually celebrated Christmas? Did he even have a family? I mean, what sort of woman would marry Black Mac? I simply could not picture him sipping sherry and being merry around the fireside with a bunch of rosy-cheeked kids. More likely to be sacrificing a virgin at a Black Mass in a dark dungeon.
And I’d bet his sorcerer’s apprentice Bill Todd is with him. I smiled at the mental image of my deputy dressed in scarlet silk robes and a goat mask. Earlier that day, I had told him to take a few weeks’ leave – I wanted him out of the way because I was now certain he was leaking stuff to Macrae.
I was slouched in my office, feet on desk, brain in neutral. UKT’s newsroom was on the thirty-seventh floor of the Canary Wharf skyscraper and it was dark outside. Through the floor-to-ceiling plate glass window I could see the moon glinting off the Thames. In daylight, Tower Hamlets – where Hazari grew up – was visible less than three miles away across the river – a ten-minute taxi ride. Inside the room, the only light came from a silent, flickering TV set in the corner and the glow from my computer, creating a moody, introspective atmosphere. A glass of grenache was helping to soothe and smooth away the day’s rough edges. Bizarrely, I had a sudden desire for a cigarette although I haven’t smoked since I was about nineteen.
My mind wandered: how long had it been since I left Sydney? October, Novem … Jeez, more than ten weeks. Bugger me. It’d certainly been a wild rollercoaster ride. But I’ve survived, I thought, giving myself a rare pat on the back. It was true that I was beginning to feel more settled in the job. My confidence had grown.
Before accepting the Russian oligarch’s offer, my main concern had been that I would be crap at managing and motivating other people. Those early fears had largely subsided. The journalists I was working with were supreme professionals – they didn’t need micro-managing, they just needed a strong vision an
d a bit of wriggle room (and generous expenses).
As I sipped the magnificent McLaren Vale red, I thought about the pressure editors faced: from the daily battle to gain circulation; from accountants nitpicking over the budget; from politicians and their spin doctors constantly seeking advantage; pressure from the big-ticket advertisers expecting favours; and from the football managers and chairmen demanding only positive coverage for their club.
On top of all that, there was the competition. The UK nationals might have all migrated away from Fleet Street but the ‘Street of Shame’ was still embodied in the most cut-throat, back-stabbing, mendacious, kick-you-in-the balls, take-no-prisoners marketplace on the planet – every newspaper attempting to hoodwink, wrong-foot and flat-out beat the crap out of everyone else.
My new job was also all about making fast decisions – literally hundreds of them, every day, often on the run. People stopping me in the corridor, in the canteen or even in the bloody toilet to ask me my opinion on everything from the latest million-pound lotto competition to the cost of a fashion shoot for the women’s section. I swear, the day I retire, I’ll throw my phone into the nearest lake.
But it was also amazingly seductive. I could never have imagined the incredible power – and responsibility – that goes with the job. I felt electrified and re-energised by the experience. Maybe that was why I took it in the first place: I need the same sort of high that cocaine used to give me. Maybe I have that sort of addictive personality.
My phone went but I ignored it. Might be bloody Bolshakov again. More shit about sanctions. I sat up straight in my big leather chair: the oligarch expected me to start campaigning early in the New Year. So, there was just a week to decide on a course of action. I groaned. Aw, man, what have I done?
I needed someone to talk to about my dilemma. Annie, God bless her, was a great sounding board on most things but she wasn’t a journalist, she didn’t understand the enormity of a newspaper like UKT doing a ‘reverse ferret’ and changing its established stance on a major political issue of the day. I needed someone on the paper. An insider. Smart, trustworthy. Someone who could provide good advice and keep their mouth shut.
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