More of Musa and me

Some more of the interview with Musa Ahmet and me talking about what it was like in Belmarsh is now up on Dave Bones blog.

Musa is talking to me about being inside with the 'Operation Crevice' fertiliser plotters - how they played jokes on each other inside Belmarsh. It's hard to connect these descriptions of blokey jollity with what the men were planning before they were jailed. I remember talking to fertiliser plot ring-leader Omar Khyam's family outside the court last April, whilst they were waiting for him to be sentenced. His dad said that they had tried to bring him back from Pakistan when he went on a trip to a training camp there, and that the family had gone to the police for help because they knew he was becoming radicalised and they were very worried. But the police said they couldn't do anything because he went willingly and going to Pakistan wasn't illegal.

The big interview with Musa ( which I did for the Sunday Times)and the aftermath of us talking, when Atilla his brother, who is serving a sentence for incitement to murder apologised from inside prison for preaching hate and said he wanted to get involved in deradicalisation work on release caused quite a reaction and made the Mirror.

Tomorrow I'm going to the launch of Quilliam, a counter-extremism think tank. Musa and Dave are coming along too. With speakers include Lord Paddy Ashdown, Jemima Khan, Timothy Garton Ash, Dr Musharraf Hussain, Dr Ali al-Saleh, Shaykh Abdul Aziz Bukhari, Dr. Ghayasuddin Siddiqui, Ed Husain, Dr Usama Hasan, Arsalan Iftikar, Mohammed Ali Hee, and er, me.

Quilliam's advisors here