'Justice prevails' for hostages, says NZer
The New Zealand businesswoman who helped convict Muslim cleric Abu Hamza of kidnapping and terror charges says justice has prevailed for her and 15 other tourists held hostage in Yemen 15 years ago.
Abu Hamza, 56, whose real name is Mustafa Kamel Mustafa, faces a possible life sentence after this week's guilty verdict on all 11 charges he faced in a New York court after a four-week trial.
Mary Quin, one of 16 tourists snatched by Islamist kidnappers in Yemen in 1998, gave evidence in the trial of the former imam of the Finsbury Park mosque in North London that he justified the kidnapping and killing of civilians in defence of Islam.
Ms Quin is now chief executive of the Callaghan Innovation Fund, which on Thursday released a statement to NZ Newswire, saying she was unable to be interviewed because of the many requests she'd received and time commitments of her job.
However, she extended her "heartfelt thanks to the investigators and attorneys whose persistence, hard work and commitment to justice over more than 15 years resulted in the extradition and trial of Abu Hamza.
"The jury's verdict of guilty confirms that justice has prevailed for me, my 15 fellow travellers, and especially for the families of the four who died as a result of being taken hostage in Yemen in 1998," she said in the statement.
Ms Quin had interviewed Abu Hamza in October 2000 while researching her book on her ordeal, Kidnapped in Yemen.
She said Abu Hamza told her that the chief kidnapper, Abu Hasan, called him during the kidnapping and that he advised him to stay back to avoid being killed during the Yemen army's rescue operation.
Four hostages were killed in that two-hour operation.
Abu Hamza, who is blind in one eye and had both hands blown off in an explosion in Afghanistan, faced charges which included trying to set up a jihad training camp in Oregon and sending support and fighters to al-Qaeda in Afghanistan.
He has already served six years in Britain for inciting hatred and soliciting murder.
