The radical cleric Yusuf Al Qaradawi, an Egyptian who heads the International Union of Muslim Scholars, is found to have designed the curriculm for top Islamic college in Wales where one of Lee Rigby's killers Michael Adebowale studied.
The radical cleric Yusuf Al Qaradawi, an Egyptian who heads the International Union of Muslim Scholars, is found to have designed the curriculm for top Islamic college in Wales where one of Lee Rigby's killers Michael Adebowale studied.Reuters

Radical Muslim cleric Yusuf Al Qaradawi had played a key-role in designing the curriculum at a prominent college in Britain, it has emerged.

The radical Egyptian cleric, an influential hardline Islamist who supports suicide bombing, is the head of the International Union of Muslim Scholars.

The Islamic college in Wales, UK, where Qaradawi was able to set the academic agenda, was attended by one of the killers of British soldier Lee Rigby.

Michael Adebowale, who hacked soldier Rigby in broad daylight outside an army barrack in London in 2013, once studied in the Islamic college in Wales.

Qaradawai, who is best-known for his 1990 fatwa in which he permitted the Palestinians to use suicide bombing as a defensive tactic against Israel, formulated the courses at the Llanybydder-based European Institute of Human Sciences attended by Adebowale.

A report in Wales Online,noted that besides supporting suicide bombing against Israel, the controversial Muslim cleric also taught that Muslim men have the right to beat women "lightly".

He also championed stoning gays and punishing rape victims for dressing immodestly.

Rigby Killer Adebowale studied at the college in April 2012 and most of the courses that he took were drawn up by a council of scholars chaired by Qaradawi.

Reports have also found that Qaradawi has a strong theological influence on the Muslim Brotherhood. He said to have developed the educational and cultural structure of the Brotherhood, including the educational curriculum by its Tarbiyya (Education) Department.

He also has been quite vocal in his support for terror groups targeting American forces and civilians in Iraq. He has been banned from the entering the US since 1999 for his extremist views.

The revelation is significant in the light that exactly seven months after his time at the college, the Rigby killer made a Facebook post giving a fellow radical a graphic account of his intent to kill a soldier.

And then in May 2013, along with fellow Muslim convert Michael Adebolajo, he hacked the fusilier to death outside a military barracks in Woolwich, South East London.

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