:00:00. > :00:13.He now says he was "naive" to support the Taliban.
:00:14. > :00:16.In an exclusive interview a British former IT support worker
:00:17. > :00:19.who was jailed in the US for supporting the Taliban online
:00:20. > :00:24.has told young Muslims not to be bullied into
:00:25. > :00:29.Babar Ahmed from London was imprisoned after pleading guilty
:00:30. > :00:35.after providing materials are posted to terrorism,
:00:36. > :00:37.his website encourage readers to raise money,
:00:38. > :00:38.good fighters and send equipment to the
:00:39. > :00:50.You pleaded guilty in the States to providing material support
:00:51. > :00:52.for terrorism and conspiring to provide material
:00:53. > :00:55.And what that means is funds, personnel and equipment
:00:56. > :01:01.for the Taliban, and as the judge said, it was not about you planning
:01:02. > :01:03.a terrorist attack, it was about you giving support
:01:04. > :01:07.via a website to the Taliban at the time they were protecting
:01:08. > :01:10.Osama Bin Laden, before he carried out the 9/11 attacks.
:01:11. > :01:12.It means you are a convicted terrorist.
:01:13. > :01:20.The judge, one of the most senior judges in America, who sentenced me,
:01:21. > :01:24.Judge Janet Hall, after seeing all the evidence in my case,
:01:25. > :01:27.she said, "This man is not a terrorist."
:01:28. > :01:30.At the time I pleaded guilty, I had been in prison for nine
:01:31. > :01:40.I'd been in solitary confinement for about just over a year,
:01:41. > :01:42.and the prosecutors offered me a deal.
:01:43. > :01:45.They said, "Hey, plead guilty and you'll be back in England
:01:46. > :01:59.Well, I view myself in the way that the judge described me.
:02:00. > :02:02.She said, "This is a good person, he is not a risk to anyone,
:02:03. > :02:07.and more importantly this man is not a terrorist."
:02:08. > :02:10.So I mean, other people are entitled to their opinion about me,
:02:11. > :02:18.but people who know me, and the judge who saw the evidence
:02:19. > :02:21.against me, she came to the right conclusion.
:02:22. > :02:25.She also said what you did was very serious, it's not the most serious
:02:26. > :02:29.crime that can be committed, but you can't walk away
:02:30. > :02:35.from the fact that what you were doing was enabling Osama Bin Laden
:02:36. > :02:38.to be protected in Afghanistan and to train the men who actually
:02:39. > :02:40.boarded the flight that drove into the Pentagon
:02:41. > :02:44.You were, both by your voice and what you were asking people
:02:45. > :02:48.to do, encouraging the Taliban to protect Bin Laden and indeed
:02:49. > :02:54.to fight against the United States, who were trying to get Bin Laden.
:02:55. > :03:04.She also went on to say that Mr Ahmad never believed
:03:05. > :03:08.in or supported the views of Al-Qaeda or Osama Bin Laden,
:03:09. > :03:12.so it was sort of like, by advocating support
:03:13. > :03:17.for the Taliban, who at that time had, due to their failure to hand
:03:18. > :03:20.over Bin Laden to the United States, in effect that is what was
:03:21. > :03:26.Well, not knowingly, because at that time I didn't really
:03:27. > :03:30.know what Bin Laden was about, but technically yes
:03:31. > :03:33.that is what was happening at the time, that the Taliban,
:03:34. > :03:36.due to their failure to hand over Bin Laden, and it wasn't known
:03:37. > :03:40.at the time, and I didn't know at the time that 9/11
:03:41. > :03:45.is being planned and what Bin Laden is really up to, so my support,
:03:46. > :03:51.my advocating support of the Taliban was to help establish an Islamic
:03:52. > :03:55.society, but I do accept that, with hindsight, that was
:03:56. > :04:10.I did it in good faith, but in hindsight I regret doing
:04:11. > :04:19.that, and it was naive of me to do that.
:04:20. > :04:20.Because it was a complicated situation.
:04:21. > :04:23.To be clear, then, you regret supporting the Taliban back then?
:04:24. > :04:31.I think, during the 1990s, the late 1990s, after my experiences
:04:32. > :04:36.in Bosnia, after meeting survivors from the Srebrenica massacre,
:04:37. > :04:43.I think what the United Nations did at Srebrenica, there was a sense of,
:04:44. > :04:47.we have to protect ourselves, and if we don't protect ourselves,
:04:48. > :04:55.So your experiences, then, were they crucial in terms
:04:56. > :05:01.of the motivation for the setting up of the websites?
:05:02. > :05:09.Because what I saw in Bosnia, and at the end of the war in Bosnia,
:05:10. > :05:12.then I lost a lot of friends, who died fighting to protect
:05:13. > :05:29.And I considered them heroes, I still consider them heroes.
:05:30. > :05:33.And I wanted the world to know about them, and so we made a series
:05:34. > :05:35.of audio cassettes and books talking about their stories
:05:36. > :05:40.Just preserving their legacy, just telling the world about these
:05:41. > :05:44.heroes, these great men, who went and left their own lives
:05:45. > :05:51.behind in order to help bring life to other people.
:05:52. > :05:55.In 2001, an article was posted on one of the websites calling
:05:56. > :05:58.for financial support for the Taliban government
:05:59. > :06:05.You know, what you can do to help the Taliban was the headline,
:06:06. > :06:09.and it talked about how people good, effectively, send $20,000 to them,
:06:10. > :06:15.You didn't post that article, did you feel a responsibility
:06:16. > :06:17.for its billing on the website, though?
:06:18. > :06:22.I was the founder of the website, so even though I didn't post that
:06:23. > :06:28.article, as the founder of it, I accepted criminal responsibility
:06:29. > :06:35.for it in the United States, and that, together with another
:06:36. > :06:38.article, was the sum total for which I pleaded guilty,
:06:39. > :06:42.And did you agree with that article, what you could do
:06:43. > :06:47.The article called for people to send equipment to the Taliban,
:06:48. > :06:54.At the time, there was a risk that there might be
:06:55. > :07:00.This is all happening way before 9/11, so the Taliban,
:07:01. > :07:06.at that time, they are in government with three embassies,
:07:07. > :07:08.recognised by three countries around the world, and they are involved
:07:09. > :07:12.in a civil conflict with the Northern Alliance warlords.
:07:13. > :07:16.So at that time, it was said that Russian troops might launch
:07:17. > :07:23.a chemical invasion of Afghanistan and so the website published appeals
:07:24. > :07:30.calling for gas masks to be given to the Taliban to help defend
:07:31. > :07:32.themselves against a chemical attack.
:07:33. > :07:35.One of the articles was still on the website after 9/11 am
:07:36. > :07:38.when it was clear that Al-Qaeda was responsible for 9/11.
:07:39. > :07:44.There was 4000 items of content that went on the websites.
:07:45. > :07:46.So, obviously, you know, a lot of them, they stayed
:07:47. > :07:58.It's easy to put everything in the context of 9/11, whereas,
:07:59. > :08:01.at 4000 items of content on the website, 98%
:08:02. > :08:06.were about Bosnia and Chechnya, and then right at the end
:08:07. > :08:08.of the life of the website there were these two article
:08:09. > :08:10.supporting the Taliban, which, of course, I mean,
:08:11. > :08:13.in hindsight that decision to put those articles on the website
:08:14. > :08:17.and to advocate support for the Taliban, then I regret that,
:08:18. > :08:27.With the hindsight of what is actually going on in Afghanistan
:08:28. > :08:31.In late 2001, again, after 9/11, Azzam posted
:08:32. > :08:45."We believe the word of Osama Bin Laden and the Taliban
:08:46. > :08:48.as Muslims when they say they had nothing to do with this terrorist
:08:49. > :08:51.attack, over and above the word of a lying disbeliever like Bush.
:08:52. > :08:54.If they did it, they would proudly say so, because they are not afraid
:08:55. > :08:59.What did you think of those sentiments at the time?
:09:00. > :09:09.Here lies the naivety of taking people's words at face value.
:09:10. > :09:14.And strange and odd as it seems now, at the time I never believed that
:09:15. > :09:18.Bin Laden and Al-Qaeda were behind 9/11.
:09:19. > :09:23.They only accepted responsibility for it, I think it was about four
:09:24. > :09:25.years later, in 2005, where Bin Laden made a statement
:09:26. > :09:30.saying, yes, we accept responsibility for that.
:09:31. > :09:35.So even though much of the rest of the world knew it was Al-Qaeda
:09:36. > :09:41.Well, there was assumptions, and me as a Muslim,
:09:42. > :09:46.You know, if I have to take sides, Bush said, "You are either with us
:09:47. > :09:50.So after that, it wasn't really about Al-Qaeda,
:09:51. > :09:55.it was about this country, you know, the Taliban,
:09:56. > :09:58.they are being attacked, and if I'm going to take sides,
:09:59. > :10:03.then obviously I'm going to take their side.
:10:04. > :10:05.It doesn't mean that I support Al-Qaeda or Bin Laden,
:10:06. > :10:10.because of my experience in Bosnia where, you have a Muslim nation
:10:11. > :10:15.that is attacked by a foreign invading army, then my sympathy
:10:16. > :10:19.would be with the Muslims, obviously.
:10:20. > :10:21.How would you describe the Taliban now?
:10:22. > :10:26.Well I was wrong to advocate support for them, obviously.
:10:27. > :10:31.You have always made it clear that you condemn 9/11.
:10:32. > :10:42.Do you understand why the American authorities might think otherwise?
:10:43. > :10:48.Do you think the start of cyber jihad is, the images have been
:10:49. > :11:00.adopted and are used in a different way. More gruesome and sophisticated
:11:01. > :11:04.way backers but like Islamic State. I don't think so because the
:11:05. > :11:13.websites were. The conflicts in Bosnia there for invading armies had
:11:14. > :11:22.invaded a Muslim country and were killing civilians. What is happening
:11:23. > :11:25.today is that people are killing civilians and they are filming it
:11:26. > :11:32.and putting it on TV, like the complete opposite of what websites
:11:33. > :11:38.stood for. There is no link at all? Of course not. One of the tapes your
:11:39. > :11:42.website hosted and you narrated was called in the heart of the Green
:11:43. > :11:48.birds and it had stories as you spend of battles in Bosnia and
:11:49. > :11:54.people who were killed, years later that tape was found in possession of
:11:55. > :11:58.some of the London bombers and even now there are quotes from that
:11:59. > :12:03.cassette in social media posts from British infighting for so-called
:12:04. > :12:12.Islamic State. What you think of that? I will say what David Cameron
:12:13. > :12:15.said the responsibility of those who murder innocent people lies with
:12:16. > :12:25.them themselves. I have heard that this cassette, the London bombers
:12:26. > :12:30.had come I also heard there was an article from the BBC News website
:12:31. > :12:34.found on their computer. We cannot say what actually was there a reason
:12:35. > :12:40.or their motivation, but to say that someone has the tape about heroes
:12:41. > :12:45.who gave their lives protecting innocent people in Bosnia and use
:12:46. > :12:50.that as motivation to killing innocent people on the streets of
:12:51. > :12:56.London, you need quite a lot of mental gymnastics to get from there
:12:57. > :13:01.to there. Would you say to young British booze limit men and women
:13:02. > :13:05.who, like you did 20 years ago, felt angry about the way some Muslims
:13:06. > :13:11.were being treated in parts of the world? -- what would you say to
:13:12. > :13:14.young British Muslims. I felt outraged, not angry, it is a
:13:15. > :13:19.difference. It is not a crime to feel outraged at injustice, but
:13:20. > :13:27.ultimately we are responsible for our actions, and it is important
:13:28. > :13:34.that before people decide to take a course of action, before you
:13:35. > :13:38.translate your outrage into action, think deeply and carefully about
:13:39. > :13:46.what you are doing and do not allow yourself to be a pawn. Do not allow
:13:47. > :13:50.yourself to be used by other people, do not let anyone believe you, the
:13:51. > :13:55.only way to Paradise -- don't let anyone believe that the always
:13:56. > :13:59.Paradise is by bringing misery on other people. Make your old mind up,
:14:00. > :14:04.be smart and intelligent and do your research and make your own mind up.
:14:05. > :14:08.That is what I would say. What if those young people make their mind
:14:09. > :14:15.up and think I am going to go and join Islamic State? If that is what
:14:16. > :14:21.they do, as long as they understand the risks they are taking to their
:14:22. > :14:28.own lives, they could end up in prison, disabled, war is no joke. I
:14:29. > :14:32.have been in a war and I've been on battlefields, and no one should be
:14:33. > :14:39.under any illusion that war is some kind of glorified thing that you see
:14:40. > :14:43.in a video with music in the background and it's all going to be
:14:44. > :15:04.nice and good. Before you decide to put yourself in that situation.
:15:05. > :15:09.These are real risks. Sometimes in people's eagerness to want to do
:15:10. > :15:17.something. And it's important that before
:15:18. > :15:21.people decide to take a course Don't allow yourself to be used
:15:22. > :15:23.by other people. Don't let other people bully
:15:24. > :15:26.you that the only way to Paradise is by bringing misery upon innocent
:15:27. > :15:29.people who have done nothing to you. Make your own mind up,
:15:30. > :15:32.be smart, be intelligent, do your research and make your
:15:33. > :15:34.own mind up. And what if those young people
:15:35. > :15:41.make their own mind up and think, From what I've heard of people
:15:42. > :15:44.getting journalists and cutting the heads off on TV, I do not recognise
:15:45. > :15:55.this, it is alien to me. Jihad is to be Islamic history.
:15:56. > :15:58.Or do not go and join a group of people for whom there
:15:59. > :16:02.I would be really emphatic in saying that.
:16:03. > :16:13.No God tolerates terror and misery being brushed innocent people on the
:16:14. > :16:16.half of the course. You spent eight years fighting extradition and
:16:17. > :16:21.argues you should be tried in the UK court, if you had been tried, would
:16:22. > :16:26.you have pleaded not guilty? Absolutely, if I was put on trial in
:16:27. > :16:29.this country as I was asking for eight years I would have pleaded not
:16:30. > :16:34.guilty and I would have gone to trial because at most I was facing a
:16:35. > :16:42.sentence of about two years if I found guilty. In the super max
:16:43. > :16:46.prison in America I was there for two years and lived through complete
:16:47. > :16:50.hell, those two years with the darkest years of my life. Every
:16:51. > :16:54.minute of every day from the moment you wake up to the moment you go to
:16:55. > :17:02.sleep was a battle. If you can sleep. I saw one suicide attempt per
:17:03. > :17:06.week, three in one day, inmates who had gone crazy and were just banged
:17:07. > :17:10.the doors and shout and scream all day and all night. At that point I
:17:11. > :17:17.had been imprisoned for one half years without trial and far away
:17:18. > :17:21.from home in a foreign country and prosecutors come to me and say,
:17:22. > :17:28.please guilty and you will be home within the year. Any person in their
:17:29. > :17:33.right mind would just sign on the dotted line and that is what I did,
:17:34. > :17:37.I don't regret pleading guilty, I'm not taking that back, it was the
:17:38. > :17:44.best decision of my life and I am proud I made that decision. But at
:17:45. > :17:49.that time I did not care what anyone thought of me, I just wanted to get
:17:50. > :17:55.back to my family, and here I am. I'm glad I made the right decision.
:17:56. > :18:01.It's like you want it both ways, you pleaded guilty, you could
:18:02. > :18:07.effectively come home sooner to Britain and now you are here it is
:18:08. > :18:10.like that is irrelevant? .Com I want to make it clear I have no regrets
:18:11. > :18:15.on pleading guilty in America, pleading guilty in America was the
:18:16. > :18:18.best decision of my life because it allowed me to come home. I'm not
:18:19. > :18:22.saying that I should not have pleaded guilty, according to the
:18:23. > :18:27.laws of the US I was guilty and that is why pleaded guilty. Talk to us
:18:28. > :18:33.about two years of solitary confinement? Describe what that
:18:34. > :18:41.actually means in practical terms? It means you are in yourself for 23
:18:42. > :18:47.- 24 hours per day by yourself. You are let out for one hour in an
:18:48. > :18:53.underground pit underground concrete, where you cannot see in
:18:54. > :19:00.the distance. If something is bothering you you cannot speak to
:19:01. > :19:03.anyone or text anyone, you cannot shout at anyone, you just have to be
:19:04. > :19:09.alone with your thoughts and toss and turn until the morning. I'm a
:19:10. > :19:14.member there was an inmate next to me and he tried to commit suicide,
:19:15. > :19:19.there was blood all over his cell, it was like one centimetre deep, and
:19:20. > :19:23.going past the cell there was so much blood it's not like a
:19:24. > :19:27.picture's. After I got back I went into a bridge across match-up and it
:19:28. > :19:35.straightaway took me to that memory of the blood in that cell, even now
:19:36. > :19:40.in the pictures I smell the blood. Those were dark days and I will not
:19:41. > :19:44.lie to embellish it, those were the darkest years of my life. During
:19:45. > :19:49.that period I would have done anything to get out of that place
:19:50. > :19:54.and get home and I made the right decision and I am home. When you
:19:55. > :20:02.were extradited to the states you were hooded, I understand, as you
:20:03. > :20:11.were led to the plane. Why? I don't know. When I got to the Royal Air
:20:12. > :20:16.Force Base it was Metropolitan Police officers that first applied
:20:17. > :20:22.the Black tells the mask and you must be before I the police van and
:20:23. > :20:26.the officer came back and said I'm sorry, we need to put these on you
:20:27. > :20:32.and I remember saying you know you are allowed to do this? Blindfolding
:20:33. > :20:36.is banned in Europe. He said I'm really sorry, it's the Americans.
:20:37. > :20:43.That is the way they wanted done so we have to do like that. He was
:20:44. > :20:50.scared, the Met police officers rescued of the Americans -- were
:20:51. > :20:54.scared. This was in a row Air Force Base in East of England. So they put
:20:55. > :20:59.these blacked out goggles on me and the earmarks and left me with
:21:00. > :21:05.handcuffs to this building and after that I was handed to the Americans,
:21:06. > :21:10.who did the same, they blindfolded me and put earmuffs on me and put me
:21:11. > :21:16.in shackles before they led me to the private jet, and I stayed like
:21:17. > :21:26.that for the first hour of the flight and when I landed an hour or
:21:27. > :21:31.two after -- are too when I landed they put me back in it. Why? I do
:21:32. > :21:37.not know but after I complained to the British Consulate in Boston they
:21:38. > :21:42.contacted the Foreign Office, who contacted the US Government and they
:21:43. > :21:48.stopped doing that. The next person who was extradited after me did not
:21:49. > :21:57.get a. Now you are back I wonder if you think you are being monitored by
:21:58. > :22:03.MI5? I hold not. I think MI5, they have much more things on their plate
:22:04. > :22:07.then to be following me or monitoring me, they've tried calling
:22:08. > :22:12.me in a few times asking if I'm interested in working for them and
:22:13. > :22:16.I've told them I'm not a rat, it is not who I am. Since you have been
:22:17. > :22:22.back? A few times, about three times they have called me. They have not
:22:23. > :22:26.been aggressive, they've been polite and courteous and asked me and
:22:27. > :22:32.respected my decision that I do not wish to work for them or meet them.
:22:33. > :22:37.You said you would not do it because you are not a rat? What do you mean?
:22:38. > :22:42.It is not who I am, I'm not a spy or informant who goes into communities
:22:43. > :22:50.and tells other people about it. Most people are not like that. The
:22:51. > :22:55.intelligence services occupy a dark world, and I think it changes their
:22:56. > :22:59.most people, some of them become dark people because of the work they
:23:00. > :23:06.do and I have no desire to be part of that world. Many people supported
:23:07. > :23:11.your desire to be tried here in the UK, what did you think of that level
:23:12. > :23:17.of support? I received over 10,000 letters from the public who shared
:23:18. > :23:22.their lives with me and gave me hope. 150,000 people signed a
:23:23. > :23:29.petition calling for me to be put on trial in this country. I think those
:23:30. > :23:32.people are heroes, because I had no choice but to try and survive my
:23:33. > :23:39.ordeal, but every single one of them had a choice, and they did not have
:23:40. > :23:43.to support me. They went out of their way to support me. I am
:23:44. > :23:53.touched by that. Why are you speaking to us today. I wanted to
:23:54. > :24:00.share my experience and did not want to do it as soon as I got back. The
:24:01. > :24:08.last six or seven months I think I'm ready to start talking about my
:24:09. > :24:12.experience and I feel I have a message that perhaps some people
:24:13. > :24:15.might want to hear and some might benefit from. Thank you for speaking
:24:16. > :24:28.to us. Thank you, your welcome. We asked the police about the
:24:29. > :24:37.acquisition of aiding and they told us all and -- they told us: We
:24:38. > :24:40.approached MI5 about the claim they tried to recruit him that they had
:24:41. > :24:44.no comment to add. The full interview is on our programme paid
:24:45. > :24:46.online -- programme