Hani Al Sibai

Jul 19

**DOB:** 1 March 1961

**Nationality:** Egyptian

**Location:** UK
**Ideology/Affiliation:** Salafi Jihadi

**Type of Leader:** Radical Preacher/ Al Qaeda

Biography

Hani Mohammed Yusuf al-Siba’i is an Egyptian Sunni Islamic scholar and lawyer born in 1961 in Egypt and based in London under the status of a political refugee. Al-Sibai received financial benefits from the British government until 2017.

According to an Egyptian court, he was one of the fourteen members of the Shura of Egyptian Islamic Jihad. The Egyptian authorities sentenced him to 15 years imprisonment in the case of the Returnees from Albania (this trial is considered as one of the principal sources of information about Sunni terrorist groups in the 1990’s). To avoid the sentence, he moved to the United Kingdom where the efforts to deport him failed despite being arrested and accused of membership in the terrorist group Egyptian Islamic Jihad.

In September 2005, the UN added his name along with six other Egyptians to the list of banned individuals, and a few days later, he was added to the list of Specially Designated Nationals maintained by the U.S. Treasury Office of Foreign Assets Control, as a supporter of al-Qaeda or one of their allied groups.

The leader of al-Qaeda, Ayman al-Zawahiri, listed Hani as one of four Islamic references that the Muslim world should follow, along with Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi, Abu Qatada Al Fillistini, and Tariq Abdelhaleem.

In addition, al-Sibai is the founder and director of the Almaqreze Centre for Historical Studies in London where, according to Sky News Arabia, he delivers radical preaches following an Al-Qaeda agenda.

After the bombings of July 7, 2005 in London, he declared in Al-Jazeera interview that if Al-Qaeda was behind the attack , it should be considered a “great victory”. He also expressed his support for the September 11 attacks in the same interview.

According to The Times, he is responsible for inspiring the group linked to the Tunisian beach killings. In 2013, one of the organisers of Ansar al-Sharia in Tunisia cited Hani al-Sibai as one of five influential thinkers that encouraged the terrorists in Tunisia. He said “Sheikh Hani Sabahi is also respected in our movement. We have a steady contact with him and he is very sympathetic to our cause.”.

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Evidence of Hate Speech/Incitement:

June 2016: In a Friday sermon, al-Sebai was praising the Brexit vote and said that “the EU is a means for the occupation, intimidation, and terrorizing of the Muslims" and that Allah has answered the prayers to "disperse them."

January 2015: Al-Sebai was invited to a Lebanon’s program hosted by Rima Karak about whether Muslims could celebrate Christmas and the New Year Eve, she told him that Christians are not talking about the conflict about Shiites and Sunnis, he answered that “Christians and Westerners” are the ones who create and feed conflicts as their main objective is to separate people in order to reign.

Video Links:

On a Lebanese program hosted by Rima Karak on Al-Jadeed/New TV, al-Sebai was abruptly cut off from the live interview after he told her “I will not answer the way you like, because I'm here to serve the idea in which I believe" then he told her to "shut up" and added, "It's beneath me to be interviewed by you. You are a woman..."

Extremist Individuals - Islam