The Fishwhacker Swindle?

From our cartoon correspondent

Wacky metallic cleric Abu Hamza al-Masri was celebrating tonight after being cleared on several counts of incitement to murder and inciting religious and racial hatred. I caught up with him at his Islington pad where he was relaxing after his acquittal and before, one assumes, the mother of all piss-ups.

“Yeah,” he laughs, flicking the ash off an artfully-speared Marlboro, “you could say I might be off my tits later.” Hamza has become something of a cult figure to cartoon-lovers, but I have to say Finsbury Park's favourite lounge lizard is not big on taste. He sprawls on a leopard-print sofa while I am forced to take up a position on a cream shagpile rug near his feet. Coffee, tins of Stella and shots of Jim Beam are served by two pneumatic members of his household, who I later find out are named Mandy and Chantelle. The Chemical Brothers are pounding from the Bang & Olufsen speakers on the walls and I have to ask him to turn it down a bit.

I ask him about the charges, specifically that he urged his followers to ‘strike down the infidel dog wherever he may be found’, and that fifty kilogrammes of weapons-grade plutonium were uncovered in his lock-up. He sighs.

“The prosecution confronted me with all that shit and I’m like, ‘yeah, like, whatever, dude. Get over it.’” Another rasping laugh. “Actually, they might have had a case if it hadn’t been for you-know-what.”

You-know-what is of course the now notorious discrediting of the main investigating officer’s testimony, after he was exposed by an undercover Al-Jazeera hack as having had bestial congress with his gay horse. Surprisingly, perhaps, Hamza is not without sympathy. He leans forward and reveals a bit of scandal about a British cabinet minister, a Saudi prince and a dugong, which obviously I can’t disclose here but which certainly puts animal-buggery into a wider context for me.

I try to steer the conversation round to the subject of the offensive cartoons, but he never heard of them while in prison. “More of a Viz man myself, anyway,” he shrugs.

So what now for Abu Hamza? He looks thoughtful.

“First off, I’m going to get me some new hands. It’s an absolute cunt putting these contact lenses in and I haven’t had a proper wank for years.” Back to preaching and agitating? Again, that laugh, which seems to send women’s knees aquiver. “As a matter of fact, I’m thinking of writing a couple of Blunt Cogs scripts.”

Any last words for the readers? He considers this, then winks.

“It’s good to be off the hook at last.”