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Abu Hamza: '9/11 Made Everybody Happy'

Abu Hamza: '9/11 Made Everybody Happy'

Islamic preacher Abu Hamza said the September 11 attacks left "everybody happy", according to a tape played at his terrorism trial in New York.

In the tape, Hamza can be heard speaking casually of the attacks in the undated interview with a Canadian broadcaster.

"Everybody was happy when the planes hit the World Trade Center," he said.

"Anybody who tell you he was not happy, they are hypocrites."

At another point he says: "All Muslims are happy, even non-Muslims are happy."

He said the World Trade Center was a legitimate target because "it's the centre of evil … political and financial evil for the whole world".

Hamza likened what al Qaeda did to a hero in an American movie.

"This is what you teach your people in cowboy films when you see the aggressors being, doing bad things, and then the hero comes and gives him a couple of punches in his face," he said during the interview.

The tape was played in a Manhattan federal court after Judge Katherine Forrest turned down a request by defence lawyers to exclude it from trial on the grounds that it would unfairly prejudice their client.

"Expressing clear and unequivocal support for terrorism is no doubt prejudicial," the judge said.

"However, the defendant is charged with just those sorts of crimes."

Hamza is accused of conspiring to support al Qaeda by trying to set up a terrorist training camp in 1999 in Oregon.

He is also accused of helping to abduct two American tourists and 14 others in Yemen in 1998. Four hostages died.

The Egyptian-born cleric, 55, has pleaded not guilty.

His lawyers have argued that Hamza, known for his fiery sermons in London, is responsible only for using inflammatory words, not for any overt criminal acts.

Hamza, who was indicted under the name Mustafa Kamel Mustafa, was extradited from the UK in 2012 at the end of a protracted legal battle.

He is expected to testify in his own defence during the trial, which began last week and is expected to last about a month.