UK cleric Abu Hamza: Lost hands in Pakistan army experiment
May 09, 2014  02:30
British hate preacher Abu Hamza told his US terror trial today that his hands were blown off during a Pakistan army explosives experiment in Lahore in 1993. 

The device was prepared by an Arab with the same name as an expert alleged to have taught al-Qaeda recruits in Afghanistan in 2000-01. 

Mustafa Kamel Mustafa, 56, better known in Britain as Abu Hamza al-Masri has pleaded not guilty in New York to 11 kidnapping and terror counts that pre-date 9/11. 

He is charged over the 1998 kidnapping in Yemen of 16 Westerners, conspiracy to set up a jihad training camp in Oregon in 1999, of providing material support to Al Qaeda, of assisting the Taliban and of sending recruits for terror training in Afghanistan. 

Taking the stand in his defense for a second day, he told the court he moved with his family to Pakistan in 1992 to do reconstruction work in war-torn Afghanistan. 

After Saudi funders pulled the plug on multi-million-dollar projects, he said he helped Arab veterans of the 1980s Afghan jihad against the Soviet Union find jobs with the Pakistan army. 

Those with army tactics and explosives experience were wanted "to help with the army in other areas of conflict," Abu Hamza testified.
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