for, all the Belmarsh Muslim prisoners and their deeds, either expressly or even inferentially. 329. In my view, no moderate or mainstream Islamic speaker would not have praised, inferentially or otherwise, the Muslim prisoners of Belmarsh for (merely) speaking “truth to power”, whilst ignoring the fact that many had been convicted of serious criminal and terrorist offences. The inciting of murder or race hate or planting of a bomb in order to kill and injure innocent civilians can in no way be equiperated to merely “speaking truth to power”. In truth, what the Claimant was doing in these passages was to use the virtue of “speaking truth to power” as a device or metaphor to praise the Belmarsh Muslim prisoners for their deeds, i.e. their terrorist crimes. “Speaking truth to power” was merely a metaphor or ‘fig-leaf’ for actual deeds. The Claimant’s mask slips momentarily, however, in a revealing section in the central passage in the speech where the Claimant includes the word “fights” twice in this context (“…speaks the truth and fights, and strives, and struggles against oppression, and fights…”). This sells the lie to the Claimant’s case on this point. 330. The Claimant intentionally includes in the list of role models of those who (merely) “spoke truth to power” such virtuous figures as Moses and Jesus in order to clothe the notorious and extreme jihadist figures of Sayyid Qutb and Abdullah Azzam with respectability (i.e. for the same reasons as explained above in relation to the CAGE PRISONERS SPEECH (2011)). It is no coincidence that Sayyid Qutb and Abdullah Azzam laid the ideological and doctrinal excuses for the very crimes for which some of the prisoners listed by the BBC at Belmarsh Prison had been convicted, i.e., terrorist attacks against civilians. 331. I do not accept Mr Bennett’s submission that the Claimant’s references to Abdullah Azzam can be viewed as simply confined to his actions in fomenting the Afghan jihad against the Russian invasion. The Claimant’s references are general. Nowhere does the Claimant mention Russia or the Afghan conflict in this context. Neither do I accept Mr Bennett’s submission that the Claimant’s reference to Sayyid Qutb can be properly viewed as being confined simply to his view of “speaking truth to power”. As explained in detail above, Sayyid Qutb was famous for being the author of “Milestones” which became the ideological guidebook globally for extremist Jihadi groups such Al-Qaeda. Any positive reference to Sayyid Qutb, unless very carefully circumscribed, would be taken by a Muslim audience as promoting violent Islamic jihadism. Conclusion 332. In conclusion, in my judgement, in the BELMARSH PRISON SPEECH (2011), the Claimant espoused extremist Islamic positions and promoted or encouraged religious violence. In substance, in this speech, the Claimant is expressing unqualified support for the Belmarsh Muslim prisoners and their crimes. The technique which Mr Begg uses to signal his unqualified solidarity and praise for the Belmarsh Muslim prisoners and their deeds is not particularly subtle: he praises the Belmarsh Muslim prisoners for “speaking truth to power”, using this as a metaphor or fig-leaf for the conducting or encouraging of armed jihad (qital). He drew direct parallels with the notorious violent 20th century Islamic ideologues Abdullah Azzam and Sayyid Qutb “speaking the truth in front of tyrants and oppressive rulers”. He also employs the same technique as before, of giving credence to the deeds of Abdullah Azzam and Sayyid Qutb by bracketing them with the early prophets, e.g. Abraham who “faced off 78