Moazzam Begg’s lawyer once said that the former Guantanamo Bay detainee was ‘an extremist all right – he believes passionately in charity and justice for all.’
Many seemed to agree. Despite Begg signing a confession at Guantanamo admitting his links to al-Qaeda and terrorism-related activity (which he says was coerced), Amnesty International promoted the terror suspect widely. At a campaign event in 2007, Shami Chakrabarti of the civil-liberties group Liberty called him a “wonderful advocate . . . for human rights and in particular for human liberty’. In 2006, the New Statesman ranked Begg 21st in its top-50 list of ‘heroes of our time’ (ahead of Bill Clinton, Bob Dylan and the Queen).
However, earlier this year, Begg was charged with a series of terrorism offences relating to time he recently spent in Syria. He was accused of attending a terrorism training camp, possessing electronic documents (entitled Camp 1, Camp 2, Training Schedule, Camp Rules, and Fitness Training Schedule) and fundraising for terrorism.
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