Abdullah el-Faisal

Abdullah el-Faisal (born Trevor William Forrest, also known as Abdullah al-Faisal, Sheikh Faisal, Sheik Faisal, and Imam Al-Jamaikee, born 10 September 1963[2]) is a Jamaican Muslim cleric who preached in the United Kingdom until he was convicted of stirring up racial hatred and urging his followers to murder Jews, Hindus, Christians, Americans and other "unbelievers".

He was subsequently convicted in January 2023 in New York State Supreme Court in Manhattan on counts including soliciting or providing support for an act of terrorism.

[9][10] He grew up in the small farming village of Point, about 14 miles (23 km) from the city of Montego Bay, in upper St. James, Jamaica.

[21][22] He married his second wife, Pakistani-British biology graduate Zubeida Khan whom he met months after his arrival, in 1992, thereby acquiring rights of residence.

[18] Referred to as "Sheikh" by his followers,[4] el-Faisal travelled and lectured to audiences in mosques in Birmingham, London, and Dewsbury in West Yorkshire, and in Manchester, Worthing, Bournemouth, Cardiff, Swansea, Coventry, Maidenhead, Tipton, Beeston, and venues in Scotland and Wales.

[1] El-Faisal is an associate of Abu Hamza al-Masri, the Egyptian ousted from the Finsbury Park mosque who is known for preaching against non-Muslims, and who is currently incarcerated in the United States for various offenses.

[4] In tapes of lectures he had given, he exhorted Muslim women to buy toy guns for their children, to train them for jihad.

[1] El-Faisal tried to recruit British schoolboys for Jihad training camps, promising them "seventy-two virgins in paradise" if they died fighting a holy war.

He said el-Faisal had "fanned the flames of hostility", and told him: "As the jury found, you not only preached hate, but the words you uttered in those meetings were recorded to reach a wider audience.

[40] In addition, two of the four accused 2005 7/7 suicide bombers, Muhammad Sidique Khan, responsible for the Edgware Road blast that killed 6 people, and Jamaican-born Briton Germaine Lindsay, responsible for the blast that killed 26 people at King's Cross tube station, were followers of El-Faisal.

[49][50] In a May 2005 online posting under the name "farouk1986," Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the suspected Christmas Day 2009 Flight 253 bomber, referred to El-Faisal, writing: "i thought once they are arrested, no one hears about them for life and the keys to their prison wards are thrown away.

"[53] He is said to preach extremists views online at paltalk chat rooms and associated with the authentic tawheed website.

[55] He began to again give lectures, conduct Q&A sessions via online chats, and established himself at the pulpit of a mosque in Spanish Town, just west of Kingston, Jamaica.

[57] He reportedly traveled by road through various countries in Africa including Nigeria, Angola, Malawi, Swaziland, Mozambique, Botswana, and Tanzania before entering Kenya.

[68] On 15 January, police in Nairobi were summoned to block a protest march by several hundred people, some of whom were waving the flag of al Shabaab.

[72] There, he was questioned by Special Branch investigators who said that he had not broken any laws in Jamaica, but that the police wanted to make sure they knew where and how to find him "because of the international attention he has received.

[75] In his book Ticking Time Bomb: Counter-Terrorism Lessons from the U.S. Government's Failure to Prevent the Fort Hood Attack (2011), former U.S.

Senator Joe Lieberman described Australian Muslim preacher Feiz Mohammad, American-Yemeni imam Anwar al-Awlaki, el-Faisal, and Pakistani-American Samir Khan as "virtual spiritual sanctioners" who use the internet to offer religious justification for terrorism.

According to the Manhattan district attorney, he offered to help an undercover officer travel to the Middle East and join ISIL, and was taken into custody in Jamaica to await extradition to the USA.

[79] On March 23, 2023, Faisal was convicted, after a two-month long jury trial, of recruiting, soliciting, and inspiring students and followers to pledge allegiance to, travel to, join and commit acts of terrorism on behalf of the Islamic State, a/k/a “ISIS” or “ISIL.” He was sentenced to 18 years in a New York state prison.