Glen Jenvey Retracts “Terror Target Sugar” Confession

Paul Ray: “I was in communication with Glen throughout the time of his false conversion to Islam”

Last month, it was reported that a married British Muslim couple in Oldham were standing trial for planning “to assemble an improvised explosive device to carry out a terrorist attack after scoping Jewish targets”. According to the prosecution, they had been “radicalised by material found on the internet such as an al Qaeda magazine called Inspire”.

The story has encouraged Glen Jenvey to claim that the January 2009 “Terror Target Sugar” front-page Sun splash, which had been based on bogus information which he had provided, was a true story after all. An interview with Jenvey has been published on Paul Ray’s blog:

Now the truth is coming out about British Jews being terror targets of British Muslims

…every posting placed on ummah.com had been written by British Muslims on message forums. To make our id look real Southwest news asked me to monitor and post in the same frame of mind as British muslims on the web, this allowed us to carry on monitoring what was posted, each post myself and Southwest news posted was in fact posts already posted on British muslim message forums against Jews. The hit list of top Jews was posted by a senior member of ummah.com message forum taken from a Jewish newspaper.

To recap: Jenvey had drawn attention to a discussion thread in which a certain “Saladin1970” had raised the idea of writing complaints to “Wealthy Zionist Jews” through “Muslim organisations” (“The best thing to do is not to contact them directly”). “Saladin1970” received support from a poster using the name “abuislam”; this “Abuislam” asked for “names and addresses”, raised the name of “Sir Alan Sugar” on the thread, and upped the ante by suggesting “Demo’s out-side their Home’s and Business”. However, the thread did not gain much interest, no planning occurred, no private details were posted, and other contributors to the thread suggested that the whole thing was a bad idea. The thread is still visible to this day.

Alas, however, evidence uncovered by Tim Ireland quickly showed that “abuislam” was in fact Jenvey. After a summer of erratic behaviour, Jenvey eventually confessed to what he had done and apologised. The Sun paid Sugar £25,000 damages and £125,623 in legal costs; Jenvey was arrested for incitement, although no charges followed (this perhaps leaves the unfortunate impression that attempting to whip up Muslim resentment against Jews is a less serious matter if the motive is to make Muslims look bad, although other factors may have been involved). Meanwhile, Patrick Mercer MP, whose office had been a conduit for passing Jenvey-sourced material to tabloids, sought to distance himself (albeit with as minimal amount of fuss as possible).

However, even without knowing about Jenvey’s involvement, it’s clear from the thread that the story was “Two people mouth off about British Jews on-line”, rather than “Terror Target Sugar” (Certainly, Saladin1970 is a genuinely unpleasant character, as discussed at Harry’s Place). For his part, Sugar has speculated that the Sun had chosen to run the story in the way that it did in revenge for an earlier falling-out with the paper, and he has written in his memoir that on the day the story appeared he was assured by anti-terror police “that there seemed to be no truth in it whatsoever”.

At the time of his arrest, Jenvey claimed that the way in which the story had panned out had been due to a news agency’s error:

Jenvey said planting the posts on Ummah.com were part of an undercover sting, which was prematurely reported by South West News.

He said: “With these posts I wanted to see what sort of extremists would be attracted to it, and what sort of threats they would make against Jews. My intention was to wait for a week.”

In his new statement, however, Jenvey is claiming that his fabricated posts were made at the behest of the agency, and that his postings were versions of real messages.

But in this case, why did he confess to having misled the public? Jenvey explains:

Well ummah.com, Anjem Choudary, BBC, Guardian newspaper, Bloggerhead and other sad bloggers all live in cuckoo land with the idea that British muslims loved British Jews at the time Gaza was being bombed, so I confessed to something I never did (make up a story) and said I had become a muslim… It was very interesting for someone connected to the intelligence services to openly be invited into Mosques and Radical circles, you would not believe it. I have collected enough information that could see Anjem Choudary behind bars…

The interviewer appears to be Ray himself, who adds in a preamble:

I was in communication with Glen throughout the time of his false conversion to Islam. The before, during and after so I know the full story behind it and we had some British black humour moments about it all, especially the bacon part at the end.

Jenvey’s conversion to Islam occurred at a time of great personal turmoil, following a passing reference in the Daily Mail to Jenvey as having been “accused by several newspapers of fabricating stories about Islamic extremism”. He had also threatened suicide, which had some bearing on how police treated the fact he had posted paedophile smears about Tim Ireland out of spite after Tim’s discovered that “Abu Islam” was Jenvey. Perhaps Jenvey’s distress and conversion were simply a ruse; but it is also possible that his conversion and continued communication with Ray simply reflect an unbalanced mind.

Of course, no-one has suggested that there are no dangerous Muslim extremists or that British Jews are not potential targets; the problem was with the specific story published by the Sun in 2009. However, in true vigilante style, Ray and Jenvey suggest that concerns about the latter amounts to asserting the former:

Question: So you never posted the list of British Jews?

Glen Jenvey: No I in fact work with Jews alot on the internet I have even given talk’s in the UK at Jewish centers and took part in the film obsession the movie… everyone who took part in obsession has been attacked by the far left and muslims.

Question: When you put your name into google the Guardian newspaper and bloggers come up and Muslim sites, is this part of their attempt to silence you and spam your name.

Glen Jenvey: Yes even the BBC got on the bandwagon writing to all of my neighbours with an abusive letter about me in their research so I strung the BBC along with the rest of them.

Jenvey was interviewed by Tom Mangold for a BBC radio documentary on intelligence fantasists.

Ray adds in his preamble:

The story behind the smear job against him has not been fully told yet but I know it because I know who those who were involved in it are and their modus operandi because I was/am a target of the exact same people.

Ray discussed Jenvey on his blog and on an American radio show shortly after the “Terror Target Sugar” story was published; he claimed that Jenvey was at that time in hiding following death threats from Muslim extremists.

Ray had received a certain amount of public exposure in 2008 due to having been previously arrested for inciting hatred; he had initially been hailed as a “free speech martyr” by some American conservatives, despite the extremity of his statements (which were noted by Sadly No!). However, support melted away after pro-BNP comments came to light; Ray claimed that God was using the BNP and moving it away from racism. The incitement charge, though, was eventually dropped. During 2009 he became involved in the founding of the English Defence League, although he was quickly sidelined. Wide press attention came last year (including a front-page article in the Times), following the Utoya massacre: Anders Breivik claimed to have meet a man in the UK using the name “Richard the Lionhearted”, and Ray writes his posts under the name “Lionheart”.

I’ve written about all this a number of times on this blog; it’s not clear whether I’m supposed to be one of Ray’s “exact same people” who supposedly “smeared” Jenvey, but that would appear to be the implication. However, although my posts have for the most part been scathing and probably unwelcome, I’ve always been careful to be accurate as regards facts: I have distinguished between Ray’s qualified support for the BNP and his rejection of racism; I debunked the accusation that he had had anything to do with Breivik; and I even warned him about a bogus website which had been created in his name. Similarly, Jenvey knows from my posts and from personal communications that I have always dealt with him in good faith, as has Tim Ireland: indeed, given the viciousness of the paedo smears that appeared in the summer of 2009, Tim’s concern over Jenvey’s suicide threat demonstrated exceptionable forbearance. An expression of gratitude would be more appropriate than jibes about “sad bloggers”.

In the interview on Ray’s site, Jenvey also claims to have had “dealings” with MI5 and with “officers… attached to the anti terrorist squad running their own operations apart from New Scotland Yard”.

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