Hassan Butt

Hassan Butt (born 1980) is a British Pakistani former spokesman of the radical Islamic group al-Muhajiroun who now calls on Muslims to "renounce terror".

Butt has claimed that before renouncing terror he sent arms to the Taliban, organised training for 200 British Muslims to fight in Jihad, collected money for terrorism, incited others to terrorism, encouraged attacks on political and military targets in the UK and associated with the 7/7 bombers.

On 9 May 2008, British anti-terror police arrested Butt for questioning just as he was about to board a flight to Lahore, Pakistan; he was released after twelve days. Manchester Police subsequently released extracts from their interviews with Butt in which he stated that "I've never met Osama bin Laden. I've never met anyone from Al-Qaeda, or anyone who claimed to be from Al-Qaeda at all in my entire life", and that he had stabbed himself "as part of the whole scam."

Personal life, education, and career Hassan Butt was born in Luton to Kashmiri parents, who later moved to Manchester. There Butt attended Prestwich High School, where he claims to have been forced out for his 'Islamic activities’. He finished at Abraham Moss High School, then attended Bury College and the University of Wolverhampton, which also expelled him.

At the age of 20, he moved to Pakistan and gained notoriety in 2002 when he claimed that he had recruited 200 British volunteers to fight for the Taliban who would return to the UK and launch terror attacks.

On his return from Pakistan, he approached the Mirror newspaper attempting to sell his story for £100,000. Following this attempt, a spokesman for the Muslim Council of Great Britain said: "The very wild claims that Butt has made from Lahore show him for what he is: a clown and someone who wants to make himself important."

Early views In an interview with Prospect magazine, Butt said that he would be honoured to be called a terrorist, "I would agree to being called a radical and one day I may even be called a terrorist, if Allah permits me. That is something it would be an honour to be called."

Advocating the superiority of Islam, Butt has said that "Islam is a way of life, a way of life superior to communism and capitalism. Christianity is a mere religion and can’t cater for people’s way of life, but Islam can. With the fall of the Soviet Union, people started turning to Islam as a way of life, whereas America wanted to spread capitalism across the world. That's why Islam became the enemy." Following the 2007 Glasgow International Airport attack, Butt appeared on Newsnight where he alleged that "most Muslims" believed that terrorist activity attracts divine pleasure and admission to paradise and that "anything that is not an Islamic way of life" is a legitimate target for attack.

Butt called on the West to take on radicals and violent extremists, arguing that, "Muslim scholars must go back to the books and come forward with a refashioned set of rules and a revised understanding of the rights and responsibilities of Muslims whose homes and souls are firmly planted in what I'd like to term the Land of co-existence."

There has also been criticism from the Assistant Secretary General of the Muslim Council of Britain, Inayat Bunglawala, who has argued that Butt is wrong to argue that "we [Britain] do not need to revisit some of our own murderous actions overseas and examine whether they have contributed to the spread of violent extremism."

The Muslim activist Faisal Haque asked why Butt has not been arrested and suggested that Butt "may have been working for the security service". Butt has denied these charges saying he would inform the police if he would be aware of an impending terror attack, but that he was not an informer.

In May 2008, Channel 4 News in the UK reported that Greater Manchester Police had released transcripts from their interviews with Hassan Butt. In the extracts he said he had fabricated many of his previous claims, that he had never met Osama bin Laden and that he had stabbed himself in the arm rather than having been attacked by extremists as he had previously claimed.