A Campaign Calling for Prosecuting Terrorist Sheikhs in the International Criminal Court

Translated by Ahmed Fathy

Firstly: between the terrorist as a victim and the real culprit (terrorist sheikhs):

1- Omar Seddique Mateen was an American citizen of afghan origin, and his photos taken of himself show how he liked his appearance; presumably, these photos were captured in earlier days of his life when he was a young man brimming with youth, vivacity, and the love of life, and that is why some have claimed that he frequented the gay club, drinking wine. A radical change occurred in this life, leading him to go to the same club to turn it into a bloodbath, where many got killed including Mateen himself. What is that radical change that led him declare his affiliation to a terrorist group like ISIS and then to commit this massacre?

2- Usually, when persons face certain crises, they would resort to spiritualty and religion. In particular, when Muslims face big crises or psychological problems, they would resort to mosques. Sadly, most mosques in the Middle East, the USA, and the West in general are controlled by the Wahabi religion and its wicked, corrupt clergymen; thus, those who resort to Wahabi mosques will certainly fall victim and prey to the Wahabi criminal thought and to the sheikhs of such mosques who propagate such thought. Hence, a youth would end up turning himself into a time bomb which will annihilate itself and others around it. This American youth of afghan origin was open to life and enjoyed it to the utmost; yet, he was turned into a mere number among thousands of youths like him who sought ''peace of mind'', ''healing spirituality'', ''serenity'', and ''spiritual guidance'' in the wrong place: the inside of Wahabi mosques that helped them to become terrorists instead.

3- We remember a very painful, sad story, written in American newspapers years ago and in the Middle East Newspaper in Arabic in 2003, as far as we can remember, that two Arab male Moroccan youths were best friend, living in one apartment in LA, the USA, and both young men shared a close friendship and the love of life; one of the pair was a Muslim and the other was a Jew. When the Muslim young man faced a psychological crisis one day, he resorted to a Wahabi mosque in LA, where he got brainwashed, ending up in killing his Jewish friend inside the apartment, just because he was a Jew! This Muslim youth had lost his future and killed an innocent victim: his lifelong compatriot friend. He had wasted the life of his friend for no reason at all!

4- We have read with the passage of years thousands of similar painful, sad stories of tens of thousands of terrorist youths, and one clear painful fact has dawned upon us: those terrorist youths are murderers and victims at the same time. The real culprits and murderers are certainly the terrorist sheikhs and clergymen who managed to convince the religious youth – i.e., who believe in the Sunnite creed – to commit suicide missions by killing themselves along with innocent victims. While the youth of the world are looking forward to the future with hops of prosperity and love of life, the Sunnite youths who were deluded by the terrorist Wahabi sheikhs embraced the past of the Middle Ages and were persuaded to scorn and despise life at present and to destroy it, thinking of no future ahead of them. Whereas such deluded terrorist youths pay the price when they got killed and despised after committing their crimes, the real veritable culprits and criminals, who deluded such youth into suicide and self-destruction and into committing massacres, are still living, enjoying life to the fullest, and playing their terrorist role of brainwashing more youths, while enjoying the protection of the West country that they live in!

5- As long as such disgraceful, shameful status is going on, the series of bloodbaths will go on in the West countries; the Wahabi sheikhs will go on tempting and brainwashing deluded youths, driving them to commit suicidal missions involving massacring others and themselves. Psychological crises do happen and reoccur frequently, and as long as such youth resort to terrorist Wahabi and Salafist mosques with its terrorist clergymen, in the West and elsewhere, bloodbaths will go on and reoccur worldwide.

6- In man-made laws, we know that those who incite others to commit crimes are culprits who are punished just like the criminals, in all ordinary crimes and cases. What about the painful fact that when a venerable, honored sheikh turns a mosque, a place that should have been for seekers of peace and serenity, into a school from which criminals and terrorists graduate, thinking that houris in Paradise wait for them once they die within a bloodbath perpetrated by their own hands! An ordinary criminal might kill one person, and when it is transpired that this criminal was incited by someone else, this instigator of this crime is duly punished like the murderer.

7- Why American apparatuses and authorities and those of the West countries overlook and turn a deaf ear to Wahabi terrorist sheikhs in their mosques, though such corrupt clergymen are instigators of the terrorist crimes and should be duly punished, especially when proofs are collected that such and such terrorist youth used to frequent a certain mosque?

8- those preachers of Friday congregational prayers sermons and night sermons in Wahabi mosques in the USA and the West countries in general manipulate the freedom of speech and of discourse to incite and instigate youths to commit terrorist crimes, and such preachers incite the culture of hate against the others, who differ in religion, creed, or doctrine. Immigrants into the West countries from Asian and Hispanic origins succeeded in integrating and acculturating into their societies, especially in the USA. In contrast, Arab and Muslim immigrants adamantly refuse to integrate and despise the countries that host them because such countries are perceived as lands of 'infidels' who deserve to be murdered! Such dangerous erroneous views are still being propagated until now by Wahabi preachers in all Wahabi mosques. What exacerbate and aggravate matters is the fact that frequenting mosques for Friday congregational prayers is a deeply rooted habit within Muslim immigrants in the USA and the West countries, leading some of them to fall prey to Wahabi wolfs.

9- Within laws of some countries, the law punishes those who knew beforehand that a murder would be committed and would not notify the police. The CNN channel asserted that the wife of Mateen told the FBI that he expressed his wish to her before that he desired to perform a ''jihad'' operation, but she asserted that she never knew anything about the Orlando gay club attack at all. FBI investigators are studying the possibility of accusing her of being unwilling to notify the police of her husband's desire to commit a terrorist crime. Why should not that apply as well to terrorist sheikhs in American mosques? Are they above the American laws as untouchables?!

10- We never heard news of arresting a terrorist sheikh that incited and instigated terrorist crimes within a mosque, TV channel, or a website. The crimes of such terrorist clergymen vary in degrees as per their power, fame, authority, and media tools available to them to propagate terrorist thought to incite religious terrorism. For instance, the influence of a Wahabi imam within a mosque frequented by hundreds in a West country city is limited in comparison to terrorist sheikhs appearing in TV satellite channels, like sheikh Youssef Al-Qaradawi, or the head of Al-Azhar, the supreme Cairo-based Vatican-like Sunnite institution that has turned Al-Azhar University, in Cairo and its branches and institutes all over the Arab and ''Islamic'' world, into a terrorist institution from which thousands of potential terrorists graduate annually. The head of Al-Azhar used his influence to imprison anyone who would criticize the terrorism-inciting curricula of Al-Azhar University, institutes, and schools, as happened to the Egyptian scholar "Islam Al-Beheiry" months ago, who was incarcerated for this very reason. The Nigerian Boko Haram chef is a graduate of Al-Azhar University, Faculty of Sharia Law, which teaches Sunnite sharia laws foreign to the Quran of course. Other icons of religious terrorism have graduated from Al-Azhar University, like Dr. Omar Abdel-Rahman, imprisoned for life in the USA for crimes of terror. Egyptian Salafists who have graduated from any faculties seek always to obtain a diploma degree from Al-Azhar University to get qualified and certified officially to spread and propagate terrorist thought from pulpits of mosques, such as the Egyptian Salafist sheikh, Dr. Yasser Borhami, who deserted medicine to specialize in inciting hatred against Egyptian Coptic Christians in the name of the Wahabi creed.

Secondly: the solution: prosecuting terrorist sheikhs in the International Criminal Court:

We call free persons of the whole world to lead a campaign calling for the prosecution of terrorist sheikhs in the International Criminal Court:

1- Article No. 25 in the International Criminal Court Statute applies to the terrorist sheikhs. Here is below an excerpt of this Article.

(Article No. 25

1. The Court shall have jurisdiction over natural persons pursuant to this Statute.

2. A person who commits a crime within the jurisdiction of the Court shall be individually responsible and liable for punishment in accordance with this Statute.

3. In accordance with this Statute, a person shall be criminally responsible and liable for punishment for a crime within the jurisdiction of the Court if that person:

(a) Commits such a crime, whether as an individual, jointly with another or through another person, regardless of whether that other person is criminally responsible;

(b) Orders, solicits or induces the commission of such a crime which in fact occurs or is attempted;

(c) For the purpose of facilitating the commission of such a crime, aids, abets or otherwise assists in its commission or its attempted commission, including providing the means for its commission.)

2- We quote another excerpt from Article No. 27in the International Criminal Court Statute to assert that no terrorist sheikhs enjoy authority or 'holiness' that might lead them to escape prosecution.

(Article No. 27

1. This Statute shall apply equally to all persons without any distinction based on official capacity. In particular, official capacity as a Head of State or Government, a member of a Government or parliament, an elected representative or a government official shall in no case exempt a person from criminal responsibility under this Statute, nor shall it, in and of itself, constitute a ground for reduction of sentence.

2. Immunities or special procedural rules which may attach to the official capacity of a person, whether under national or international law, shall not bar the Court from exercising its jurisdiction over such a person.)

3- Article No. 29 in the International Criminal Court Statute asserts that even repentant sheikhs who stopped instigation and incitement are liable to be prosecuted; here is an excerpt of this Article:

(Article No. 29

The crimes within the jurisdiction of the Court shall not be subject to any statute of limitations.)

4- As we are talking here about premeditated crimes of murders instigated by terrorist sheikhs worldwide, let us quote below an excerpt from Article No. 8 in theInternational Criminal Court Statute concerning war crimes.

(Article No. 8 about war crimes

1. The Court shall have jurisdiction in respect of war crimes in particular when committed as part of a plan or policy or as part of a large-scale commission of such crimes.

2. For the purpose of this Statute, "war crimes" means: (a) Grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949, namely, any of the following acts against persons or property protected under the provisions of the relevant Geneva Convention:

(i) Willful killing;

(ii) Torture or inhuman treatment, including biological experiments;

(iii) Willfully causing great suffering, or serious injury to body or health;

(iv) Extensive destruction and appropriation of property not justified by military necessity and carried out unlawfully and wantonly.)

Lastly:

1- Since the Wahabi creed has dominated many parts of the modern world, bloodbaths occur frequently as ordinary news in the media; thousands of innocent victims are being killed amidst shouts of (Allahu Akbar!) "i.e., God is the Greatest!", and no one can stop such crimes until now. Ordinary criminals might repent, whereas religious terrorists will never repent as they think and staunchly believe that murdering others is a religious jihad for God's sake that would lead them to Paradise. This is a flagrant violation of Islam (the Quran alone), as God curses in the Quran those who kill the innocent souls, and He promises them eternal torment in Hell. What about those who kill hundreds and thousands in ongoing bloodbaths?!

2- We sincerely hope that a campaign to call for prosecuting the terrorist sheikhs in the International Criminal Court; and we hope indeed that such a worldwide campaign would stop and silence such terrorist Wahabi clergymen.

3- All of us should always remember the victims of the past bloodbaths and to think about the coming possible victims of bloodbaths that might occur in the future. All free human beings must move and work together to protect humanity and the human civilization against terrorist sheikhs.

4- Silence is a sign of approval and contentment, as the Egyptian proverb goes, and silence toward terrorist sheikhs is considered condoning and overlooking an ongoing crime. Would all free human beings condone and approve of the crime of terrorist sheikhs?