LONDON: A former aide to Osama bin Laden who played a role in terror attacks on US embassies in Africa that killed 224 people wants to give British Muslim children “skills” and a “vision,” he has said in an interview.
Adel Abdel Bary, 64, spent more than 20 years in US prison for his links to the 1998 embassy bombings in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam, The Times reported.
In his first public interview since being released, Abdel Bary, who has been described as Al-Qaeda’s press officer in London, said he is keen to guide Muslim youth in Britain. One of his sons had earlier joined Daesh in Syria.
Images of the interview published online show Abdel Bary at a youth center in Birmingham, sitting behind a desk next to a whiteboard.
There are no restrictions that would automatically prevent Abdel Bary from teaching children, despite a ruling by a High Court judge in 2022 that his “past involvement at the most senior levels of global terrorism are powerful and enduring baseline indicators of risk.”
The 64-year-old has six children of his own and lives with family in northwest London, in a council flat valued at more than £1 million ($1.26 million).
Abdel Bary, a former lawyer, first arrived in Britain from Egypt in 1991 on an asylum claim. He had been imprisoned and tortured over his membership in the Egyptian Islamic Jihad and links to the assassination of Anwar Sadat, the country’s former president.
After being granted refugee status, Abdel Bary reportedly helped run Al-Qaeda’s “media information office” in the English capital.
The deadly August 1998 bombings, however, led to his arrest after he had promoted Al-Qaeda’s claims of responsibility to contacts around the world. Abdel Bary was arrested at the request of the US and held in London’s Belmarsh prison.
He fought a 13-year legal battle against extradition but was eventually transferred to the US in 2012, being handed a reduced sentence of 25 years on account of his time served at Belmarsh.
Abdel Bary was released early on compassionate grounds in late 2022 due to poor health. He returned to the UK to “live quietly” with his wife, Ragaa, a UK citizen.
But the interview, published on the Islam21c website, marks Abdel Bary’s return to the public eye in an attempt to “educate and inspire” Muslims in the UK.
He was quoted as saying: “The best things for our world now are the basics … go play with the children, give them skills, give them a vision.”
The youth center Abdel Bary visited for the interview is a volunteer-led organization that previously hosted lectures by former Guantanamo detainee Moazzam Begg.
Abdel Bary’s interviewer said: “Adel’s energy and zest for community is unabated. He wants to work with the youth. He wants to go into mentoring and give them something productive to work on.”
The 64-year-old’s son fled to Turkiye and later Spain following the collapse of Daesh. He was arrested and detained while awaiting trial for terror offenses and died last year, aged 32, while awaiting the verdict of his trial.
In response to Abdel Bary’s public interview, a spokesman for Counter Terrorism Policing said that managing convicted terror offenders was a “high priority.”
He added: “We work closely with partners to try and reduce the risk of reoffending. To do this we have strong intelligence sharing processes in place to help quickly identify and manage any potential risks of reoffending by individuals.”
