A Muslim community leader was bludgeoned to death in an Islamic State-inspired murder in a children’s playground in Greater Manchester, a court has heard.
Jalal Uddin, 64, was killed with a heavy weapon by two alleged Islamist extremists who harboured a “hatred and intolerance” of his form of Islam, jurors were told.
Uddin practised a form of Islamic healing called ruqya, the court heard, deemed by Isis to be “black magic” and its followers worthy of severe punishment or death.
The “respected and well-liked” community leader, known to his followers as the “Qari Saab” for his deep understanding of the Qur’an, was killed as he made his way home from the Jalalia mosque in Rochdale on 18 February, jurors heard.
His alleged killers – Mohammed Hussain Syeedy, 21 and Mohammed Abdul Kadir, 24 – were supporters of Isis and murdered Uddin after surveilling him for months, the court heard.
Opening the trial at Manchester crown court, the prosecutor, Paul Greaney QC, told jurors that Syeedy and Kadir “stalked Jalal Uddin around the streets of Rochdale” before Kadir launched a savage attack on the older man in a children’s playground.
Kadir unleashed “repeated forceful blows” to Uddin’s head and mouth, the court heard, leaving him with fractures so severe that his skull was forced into his brain.
“These injuries were plainly not the result of a robbery gone wrong,” Greaney said. “On the contrary, they were obviously the result of an attack that was planned – why else did the killer have a hammer with him in a children’s park? – motivated by hatred and by a desire to humiliate Jalal Uddin and undoubtedly intended to kill or, at the very least, cause really serious harm.”
Greaney told the jury that the pair discovered that Uddin practiced ruqya in the summer of 2015 and “mounted surveillance on him” before the fatal attack.
Bearded Syeedy, wearing a grey suit and black shirt with his hair tied into a ponytail, sat beside a court officer in the glass-enclosed dock as the prosecution opened its case.
Uddin, from Bangladesh, was found severely injured by two young girls, one of whom recognised him because he taught her the Qur’an, the court heard.
Jurors were told that Syeedy accepts that Kadir murdered Uddin and that he was with his accomplice before and after the killing.
However, Greaney told the court that Syeedy will claim he had no idea Kadir was going to attack Uddin before it happened and that he played no part in the murder. He will also claim that he does not support Isis or violent extremism of any type, the court heard.
Greaney told jurors that Syeedy’s denials were “not true”. He said Syeedy drove his accomplice to the gates of the park “knowing full well that Kadir intended to attack Jalal Uddin so as to kill him or at least cause him really serious harm and that he therefore intentionally assisted and encouraged that attack”.
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