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'As a Muslim, I will spend the rest of my life confronting these people'

Terri Judd
Friday 02 September 2005 19:00 EDT
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Sean Cassidy, 57, who lost his Ciaran, 22, did not even want to read the justification as to why 52 people had to lose their lives. "Why give such an idiot so much space and time?" he said. "I am bloody angry about it. It should not be publicised."

For Mr Cassidy and his wife, Veronica, from north London, Khan's claims made no difference. Mrs Cassidy said: "I don't think of these people. It's not going to bring my son back."

Joe Sands, whose brother-in-law Michael Brewster - a 52-year-old Derbyshire engineer and father-of-two - was in the Edgware Road train which Khan blew up, agreed. "My initial reaction was that it should not be shown on television in this country; they should not be given a voice at all," he said. "He believed he was at war but I can't see how blowing up innocent people achieves anything. What good does it do? They are murderers, killers of innocent people."

Chris Agwu, cousin of the social worker and mother-of-three Ojara Ikeagwu, 55, who died at Russell Square, added: "I personally don't share the view that freedom of speech should be extended that far; it just gives them further publicity."

Paul Dadge, whose face was seen across the world helping the Edgware Road survivor Davinia Turrell, said: "If it had not been shown on television, people would have watched it on the internet." He said he was interested to hear the Yorkshireman's uncompromising address. "He describes himself as a soldier. I would describe him as a deluded Islamic extremist terrorist."

Gous Ali, the boyfriend of Neetu Jain, a 37-year-old computer analyst and Hindu killed on the No 30 bus in Tavistock Square, said: "Muslims around the world will be distancing themselves from anything these fundamentalists have to say." Mr Ali, 33, said: "As a Muslim, I will fight for this country, because this is my country and I am loyal to this country. No Islamic scholar would promote killing people for any cause."

John Falding, an Israeli whose partner, Anat Rosenberg, was on the No 30 bus, said the bombers had had "all humanity twisted and brainwashed out of them" and asked what they would achieve. The "indiscriminate" attacks had killed Muslims, and many people opposed to the war in Iraq, he said.

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