The Westminster terrorist has been linked to the “Salafi” Luton Islamic Centre, which published extremist material whilst its leaders received £75,000 of public money, including sums for “preventing violent radicalisation”.
Khalid Masood was listed as a contact for the recently deleted website calltoislam.com of the hard-line mosque. Salafism is a literalist and puritanical form of Islam with adherents aiming to live like Muhammad and his followers in the 7th century.
The mosque’s website had uploaded sermons attacking Christians and Jews for their “greed, jealousy and fornication”, as well as urging followers to “make ready… steeds of war to threaten the enemy of Allah”, The Sunday Times reports.
A journalist from the paper found Mr. Masood’s phone number and name on leaflets in the mosque promoting the website. The mosque claimed they were planted but did not deny Mr. Masood worshipped there.
In another sermon published on the site and delivered at the mosque, its imam, Abdul Qadir Baksh, attacked the government for “scheming” against Muslims.
He ranted: “Brothers and sisters, it is high time you all woke up and understand this government is creating a form of Islam in this country… which not just integrates with the disbelieving society but simulates it.
“At the moment the buzzwords are ‘integration’, ‘the wider community’, ‘breaking down barriers’ and so on. In the end it will be concentration camps, massacres and plunder.”
Mr. Baksh has previously said that gay people should be executed and has linked approvingly to an anti-Semitic video by David Duke from his Facebook page.
The mosque was also linked to the 2010 Stockholm bomber, Taimour Abdulwahab, who worshipped at the institution. However, Mr. Bakash claimed to have challenged his views and threw him out of the building.
Despite the mosque’s record, Mr. Baksh was able to secure huge sums of money for his “community work” including allegedly fighting extremism.
The radical imam and another director of the mosque ran an English language school described as a “branch of” a charity called the Ethnic Minority Training Project that has received at least £75,000 of public money.
Mr. Masood was a teacher at the school before becoming a terrorist.