ONE of the bomb-plot suspects made a weekly trip to the mosque where caged Islamic preacher Abdullah el-Faisal delivered his hateful sermons, it was revealed last night.
Car salesman Shazad Khuram Ali, 27, would travel from High Wycombe, Bucks, to the East London Mosque in Whitechapel every Sunday.
Cleric el-Faisal, who had close links to hook-handed Abu Hamza, would tell British Muslims it was their duty to kill non-believers. He was jailed in February 2003 for nine years — reduced to seven on appeal — for inciting murder and stirring race hatred.
Abid Zaman, a close pal of Ali and a former driver of Hamza, said: "He’d be there most Sundays. It must be a 100-mile round trip.
"I last saw him three months ago in High Wycombe when he gave me a lift home. He didn’t give any indication he was caught up in terrorism."
Zaman, 33, grew up with Ali in High Wycombe and lives just a street away from another suspect — Don Stewart-Whyte, 21, the white Christian who converted to Islam.
And Zaman is a family friend of cabbie Waseem Kayani, 29 — another of those being held by police investigating a plot to blow up transatlantic jets.
Zaman said: "Waseem became very religious after going to Pakistan a year ago to find a wife.
"In his early school days he had a reputation as a bit of a hard nut.
"But he was a good man and I don’t believe he is a bomber.
"He would take my brother, who is autistic, to school in his taxi.
"A few months ago my mum saw him and he had grown a beard. She even said what a nice man he was and why I couldn’t be more like him."
Zaman spent a year as Abu Hamza’s volunteer driver after meeting him during el-Faisal’s Old Bailey trial.
He said: "It was an honour." Hamza was jailed for seven years this year for soliciting murder and inciting racial hatred
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