So I saw people shot in the streets and running
and seeking help.
But I think those...
I don't know if I can visualise them,
those things had an effect on me.
I was born in Bangladesh.
The country at that time was called East Pakistan.
In 1971, there was a war of independence,
so I was about 11 or 12 at that time.
But my upbringing, in terms of education,
was highly disrupted because of that war.
My own brother, my elder brother, being killed,
whom I saw die in front of my own eyes.
And 22 other relatives were killed in that violence.
But at that young age, 11, 12, 13, up to about 16,
it was always fighting and killing
and people dying around you or death.
So I saw people shot in the streets and running
and seeking help.
Conflict on both sides, nobody's to be blamed, I think,
on looking back, but I think those...
I don't know if I can visualise them,
those things had an effect on me.
[Interviewer] When did you leave and come to the UK?
Yeah, so I went to college and I was 17
and by the time I was about 17 and a half,
my father had come to this country.
He was supported to come here as an asylum seeker, refugee,
I mean, I don't know the exact status, but he fled.
So when I went to university, that's where I was -
if I can use the word - radicalised.
I don't know if I was radicalised or not,
because I was all always prone to such thinking
or amenable to such thoughts.
And there were people from mainly the Muslim Brotherhood
who had the influence on me in the political direction.
Talking will get you nowhere,
so we'd have you do two things:
one, become more alert to your reality.
Secondly, this reality will not change by being part
of the status quo, you have to fight back.
As a young person, I wanted to be meaningful.
I wanted to contribute in a way that made real change,
not just talk, because politics is too long-winded
and I don't understand and there's hypocrisy
and double standard.
Even at that age, we understood this.
It wasn't all, I'm a good Muslim
and I want to make Islam great.
It was more like, well, you are cowards, I'm a brave person.
There's a fight in Palestine and they are the underlings
and I can fight.
So when Islam was added to the equation, of course,
it kind of had a very potent mix.
So I felt enthused, I felt I was doing the right thing,
because it is, after all, in support of those
who are victimised or the victims.
At that age, I didn't understand
that there's another narrative,
there's another side to the story that the reality
is much more complicated, if not confusing,
that others, other people- others, I mean non-Palestinians,
non-Muslims in general,
people, human beings, have rights, feelings.
There was an argument going back,
perhaps several thousand years about Palestine.
So I worked for the first 20 years in my organisation
from the age of 21 until about 40 years old,
without pay every weekend.
It's a lot of hard work to not only bring people
to a political awareness,
but to infuse them to say politics is not the way,
the way is jihad, to fight back.
[Interviewer] Where did you fight for jihad take you?
What sort of countries did you end up travelling to?
When I got involved in the physical fighting,
it wasn't as easy as today,
where you can just hop on a plane, go off to, say, Turkey
and then across the border.
You had to go through a lot of loopholes, rigmarole.
So in my case, I had a person come over from Germany
to vet me, to make sure that I am not a fake
or a dangerous person to them.
So I was vetted first, then I go to Amsterdam
and then I'm vetted again
and this bloke called Immadadin Bakari,
who was a veteran from the Afghan jihad,
then gives me a letter of approval.
I take that letter, then I fly off to Peshawar in Pakistan,
having the contact, then I make my way to the camp
in Pakistan, and then they check the letter,
then welcome me in and I'm a prized person
because I'm British.
I speak English and it has always more, kind of
an aura around your head for some reason,
you walk around with a halo because you speak English
and we can bring more benefit in some ways,
I don't know how.
[Interviewer] What was the camp like when you arrived?
Camp was wonderful. If I can recap,
I project my mind back, I will never forget the brotherhood,
the sense of relief, so warm, welcoming
and it's almost like a holiday camp but it's all men,
there's not a single female in sight.
And you feel with the people because they're all there
for the one thing and they have no worldly motives.
Guns are around as well, so the excitement and thrill,
I suppose, in a boyish manner, the guns and stuff.
They look after you, they give you food,
there's brotherhood when you are sitting together,
prayers are there, eating, sleeping rough, but it's fun.
You go out local, whatever,
shopping for camouflage gear, whatever.
So I think the excitement, the glamour,
those things were also there in those days, in its own ways.
They're much more glamourised today.
So that was my feeling, so I came back really uplifted
and I felt, this is it, I've found the true Muslims.
They're not running after the world
and spending their lives working all the time
and paying bills and all the headaches.
So was it a form of escapism for many people?
I never questioned, it was for me, a relief.
[Interviewer] And who are you fighting against
in Afghanistan?
And my biggest mistake I think, was to presume
I was fighting against non-Muslim enemies.
Just because they are non-Muslims that's not the reason
why they should be- anybody should be fought.
I mean, that's not what Islam teaches at all.
But I went there to fight against the communists,
because by definition to me, on paper,
communists are godless people,
they don't believe in God or religion.
So as an outsider, I shouldn't have gone,
even if it was so-called jihad, but the point was this,
it was wrong because you ended up fighting Muslims
against Muslims and both sides had something valid
or intelligent to say about what they wanted in life.
Basically they want food and land.
[Interviewer] When did you realise,
what you were doing was wrong?
And when did your ideas shift?
Burma, my last experience when I left,
I looked at the commander and he was videotaping everything
for propaganda purposes.
Not only did I find out that at that camp,
that the leader was actually going to have, after I left,
a meeting with the FBI.
So I'm saying, why am I serving these organisations,
raising funds in Britain when they are part
of the global politics?
What's the effect on the local people?
The local people want to just live.
£10,000, even £50,000, £100,000 we have given at one go.
£10,000 is like- the entire village can live
for a whole month, happily,
in their kind of rural environment.
I bring that amount of money, give it to the leaders,
what are they doing?
So it's not that they are stealing the money,
but hey, the leader's son is studying a degree in Malaysia,
being privately funded from the money we gave.
But what has it done for the local people?
They are still in the poverty,
no improvement in their lifestyles,
there's discrimination, meaning the upper echelons
still have the lion's share of everything,
food, housing, bulletproof cars.
But then you find local boys from my group
went out and killed three or two or three other local boys
who was in another outfit,
both fighting for the same cause against the same enemy,
with the same Islam, with the same rallying calls.
But the local people, they don't move.
You can't incite them to fight, they don't want to fight,
they just want to have a common life.
Why can't we give them a political solution?
[Interviewer] You said earlier,
you didn't have the intention to kill innocent people.
So can you just clarify for me what the difference is
between the kind of jihadism you were part of
and the more modern-day jihadism,
where we see terrorists going and blowing up music venues
and killing innocent people.
Today it's kill people, it's driven by hatred, blind hatred,
no discrimination between those that are in uniform
fighting you, those who are in uniform off duty
and let alone those who are not in uniform at all
and in no security apparatus.
And then again, then you target innocent,
the most innocent of people, from the Beslan school siege
to the Bali bombing, I mean, you name it,
the catalogue will go on and on for a very long time.
And we can press into service all sorts of grievances
and talk about how,
maybe they are so provoked, they are so undermined,
they have become so desperate,
but what happened to the religion, then?
Then don't bring religion into it.
I beat myself up inside me and then I try to make up
for the evil I have caused, or to stop people going down
that evil or wickedness, or ignorance,
with the work that I do.
A young man comes up to me after Friday prayers,
I did the sermon at Wembley Central Mosque.
I do the sermon, and it's several years back,
he walks up to me and said, "Sheikh."
Called me Sheikh because it's a term of respect.
"Sheikh, after the Friday sermon, I saw your film,
I've decided not to go to Syria anymore."
Woah!
No need to be de-radicalised, referring to Prevent channel,
you just heard a talk on Channel 4, ITV or something,
and he felt I spoke the truth as an older man; that's it.
[Interviewer] If you could send a message
to people considering becoming a jihadist,
what would that be?
On a serious note, if I could,
if anybody cares to listen and at least explore
what I'm trying to say, I would say give up dogmatism,
try to find out how you know the truth,
try to understand the local politics,
the people, the culture, don't interfere.
Sometimes without knowing what you're trying to do,
you interfere and cause more harm.
Sincerity does not excuse the person and justify the person
doing reckless, irresponsible actions.