Meanwhile, down on the physical border (not the imaginary one of MSM’s collective imagination), illegals [...]]]> According to the elite liberal media like the New York Times, the illegal immigration invasion is over, so we can all forget about it and concern ourselves with the Superbowl, the Oscars and getting around to an amnesty for mucho millions.

Meanwhile, down on the physical border (not the imaginary one of MSM’s collective imagination), illegals keep coming, as shown by the mountains of trash which accumulate. The Arizona Department of Environmental Quality estimates border crossers dump 2,000 tons of trash each year. Local volunteers showed up recently to load up piles of trash for the dump.

The government has its own website for the problem, Azbordertrash.gov, as if picking up the garbage of millions of foreign invaders were the most natural thing in the world. Another indication of Washington’s acceptance of border anarchy is the EPA awarding $103K last summer to the Tohono O’odham tribe to help remove aliens’ rubbish.

Migrant trash piles up at remote U.S.-Mexico border areas, Reuters, January 29, 2012

Picking her way into the desert brush, Raquel Martinez gathered scores of plastic water bottles tossed in an Arizona desert valley near the Mexico border, often by migrants making a risky trek into the United States across increasingly remote terrain.

“We need more bags … there’s so much trash,” said Martinez, one of scores of volunteers helping clean up the dry bed of the Santa Cruz River about 10 miles north of the Mexico border on Saturday.

Trash tossed by thousands of illegal immigrants as they chase the American Dream has been a persistent problem for years in the rugged Arizona borderlands that lie on a main migration and smuggling route from Mexico.

The problem was compounded as immigrants and drug traffickers responded to ramped up vigilance on the U.S.-Mexico border by taking increasingly remote routes, leaving more waste behind in out-of-the way and hard-to-clean areas, authorities say.

“Migants used to follow the washes or follow the roads or utility poles,” said Robin Hoover, founder of the Tucson-based non-profit Humane Borders.

“Now they’re having to move farther and farther from the middle of the valleys,” he added. “They end making more camp sites and cutting more trails when they do that, and, unfortunately … leave more trash.”

Those making the punishing march carry food, water and often a change of clothes on the trek through remote desert areas that can take several days.

Most is tossed before they pile into vehicles at pickup sites like the one getting attention on the outskirts of Rio Rico, from where they head on to the U.S. interior. [. . .]

Interestingly, a Mexico-friendly publication sniffed out this article and included a sympathetic add-on from the invaders’ perspective. Those backpacks are so heavy, they complain, or bandits make them leave a mess. According to the aliens, the mountain of trash is not their fault.

Volunteers pick up after locals, migrants, Nogales International, Jan 31, 2012

[. . .] As for the migrants, deportees at a shelter in Nogales, Sonora acknowledged that some illegal border-crossers willingly discard their trash in the Arizona desert, but insisted that in many cases, others are to blame.

For example, Ubence Flores, a migrant from Comayagua, Honduras, said that “polleros,” or migrant guides, make the crossers get rid of their belongings when they arrive at a scheduled pickup point. The pollero puts everything in black plastic bags, like those found by the river on Saturday, and then throws them in a truck to be taken to a dumping site, such as in the trees along the Santa Cruz River.

Bandits also force migrants to leave their belongings in the desert, said Henry Alberto Osorio, another Honduran migrant. In this common tactic, he said, bandits threaten migrants, who flee as fast as they can. Then the bandits pick through the abandoned backpacks for valuables.

But other times, the difficulty of crossing desert terrain for days on end proves too much for migrants.

“It gets so heavy, sometimes you say ‘I can’t carry this anymore,’ and leave it,” Flores said.

Coren [...]]]> The interview below is the most honesty about Islam I can recall seeing on Fox News. Sun TV host Michael Coren appeared on Monday to comment on the guilty verdict in the honor killing trial of an Afghan father, wife and son who murdered three daughters and a polygamous wife #2 for becoming too westernized.

Coren pointed out that the police and media are afraid to connect such crimes with Islam, and made the distinction that honor killings are not some sort of domestic violence. He called honor killing “intrinsic to Islam” and noted that the “vast majority occur within the context of the Muslim faith.” Furthermore, honor killings are not even a crime in many Muslim countries.

Also noteworthy, Coren described how Muslims are permitted to lie to infidels in order to protect Islam. What a religion. How much more Islamic diversity can the West stand?

(The AP report about the trial’s verdict is here.)

Coren’s own show In The Arena has welcomed politically incorrect guests like immigration critic Peter Brimelow and others you never see on American television.

Several reports of the event use the word “dragnet” which implies mass round-ups, e.g. California’s Catholic [...]]]> On Saturday, Archbishop George Niederauer and a gaggle of open-borders enthusiasts (including gay Assemblyman Tom Ammiano) held a big confab at a San Francisco cathedral to complain about government deportation of criminal aliens. (Watch a local television news story here.)

Several reports of the event use the word “dragnet” which implies mass round-ups, e.g. California’s Catholic hierarchy takes stand against illegal-immigration dragnet in the Contra Costa Times.

On the contrary, the persons affected are already jailbirds. The policy being condemned is Secure Communities, a common-sense program where the immigration status of arrested persons is checked along with their previous criminal history using a federal database. Deporting them removes dangerous persons from the country.

The friends of crime diversity despise Secure Communities because it is a powerful tool in identifying and deporting invasive foreigners. The squawkers are happy to sacrifice public safety in order to advantage unfriendly invaders. In fact, a raza campaign against effective policing to protect citizens from crime has been going on for some time.

The move to dismantle police protection also extends to California lawmakers. The aforementioned Assembly member Tom Ammiano is about to submit legislation to undermine Secure Communities. (See California bill seeks to limit detention of arrestees facing deportation, LA Times, Jan 28.)

In addition, the timing of Niederauer’s event seemed crude, given that the San Francisco trial of Edwin Ramos is about to enter its second week. Ramos was the previously arrested (but not deported because of the city sanctuary policy) illegal alien accused of murdering Tony Bologna and his two sons in a mistaken-identity gang killing.

Here’s a report about the Archbishop’s shenanigans against law and order.

SF archbishop speaks against immigration program, Associated Press, January 28, 2012

A federal program that checks the immigration status of people booked into local jails is tearing immigrant families apart, the head of the Roman Catholic Church in San Francisco said at an interfaith gathering on Saturday.

“We cannot allow the pain of family separation and the fear amongst our communities to continue,” Archbishop George Niederauer said in comments directed against the federal Secure Communities program. “We need to respect the dignity of all our sisters and brothers, undocumented or not.”

Under the program, the fingerprints of individuals who are booked into jails are checked against the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency’s database. Those found to be in the country illegally face deportation.

More than 1,700 jurisdictions participate in the program, which has resulted in the deportation of more than 110,000 immigrants convicted of crimes, according to ICE.

But critics say the program has also ensnared people with no prior criminal convictions or those arrested for relatively minor violations.

“This program results in our brothers and sisters being sent to a detention center because they were stopped for as little as a traffic violation,” said Moises Agudo, a member of the San Francisco Archdiocese who also spoke at Saturday’ event.

The gathering at St. Mary’s Cathedral was attended by hundreds of people, many of them Hispanic immigrants.

ICE says it prioritizes the removal of illegal immigrants who pose the greatest threat to public safety and those who have repeatedly violated immigration laws. Of the more than 110,000 immigrants deported under the program, over 39,000 were convicted of aggravated felonies such as murder, rape and the sexual abuse of children, according to ICE.

But some local communities and states are not convinced. San Francisco and nearby Santa Clara County have sought permission from the federal government to opt out. And California considered legislation last year that would only let local communities participate in the program if they choose to do so through a resolution.

The bill was sponsored by San Francisco Assemblyman Tom Ammiano, who attended Saturday’s gathering and said he plans to introduce similar legislation within 30 days.

“I believe my bill will reform the ICE act and the injustices they have perpetrated on all our people,” Ammiano said. “Together we can do this, together we are powerful.”

However, not all the diverse recruits are friendlies.

Consider a [...]]]> Candidate Gingrich thinks it would be a swell idea to have the DREAM Act cover only illegal aliens who sign up for the military, not persons who attend college. It would be the sort of “earned citizenship” program that politicians of both parties like way too much.

However, not all the diverse recruits are friendlies.

Consider a recent criminal case which came to resolution on Thursday. An ex-Marine pleaded guilty to the crime of shooting up the Pentagon causing over $100K in damage, which will likely get him sentenced to 25 years in prison. He managed to produce a film of himself firing the shots while he yelled “Allah Ackbar.”

The shooter, Yonathan Melaku (pictured), was an Ethiopian who came here as a child and graduated from Thomas Edison High School in Franconia, Virginia. He had plenty of opportunity to assimilate, but chose the path of the enemy.

Melaku is not the first diverse military guy to go bad by a long shot. Surely the worst is the accused mass murderer of Fort Hood, Major Malik Hasan, an Army psychiatrist who benefited from the idea that in the modern military, diversity is among the top values.

Another noteworthy aspect to this case is the media’s studied stupidity about the reason for the crime. The Washington Post titled a Jan 26 article, “Motive of shooter who targeted military sites is unclear”. The piece even mentions the perp shouting “Allahu Akbar!”

Apparently the press prefers mental illness as an explanation. An alien culture with 1400 years of warfare against outsiders doesn’t suit their multicultural ideology.

Accused Pentagon shooter Melaku pleads guilty, Associated Press, January 26, 2012

An ex-Marine from Virginia pleaded guilty Thursday and has agreed to serve a 25-year prison sentence on charges that he fired a series of overnight pot shots in 2010 at the Pentagon, the Marine Corps museum in Quantico and other military targets as part of what prosecutors called a campaign to strike fear throughout the region.

Prosecutors also revealed Thursday new details about Yonathan Melaku’s intended next target: Arlington National Cemetery, where he was arrested before he was able to carry out a plan to deface gravestones there.

As part of Thursday’s plea deal, Melaku, 24, of Alexandria, pleaded guilty to destruction of U.S. property, use of a firearm in an act of violence and intention to injure a veterans’ memorial, namely the cemetery. Prosecutors and Melaku’s lawyer agreed to a 25-year sentence as part of the deal, and U.S. District Judge Gerald Bruce Lee said he would agree to the sentence as well.

Formal sentencing was delayed until April so a pre-sentence report can be prepared and Melaku’s lawyer can request a mental-health evaluation for his client.

Prosecutors also released a video, made by Melaku, that was part of the evidence in the case, in which Melaku is seen firing shots at the National Museum of the Marine Corps as he drives by from I-95, where the museum is easily visible. In the video, Melaku shouts “God is Great!” in Arabic and talks about targeting the museum and “turning it off permanently.”

The overnight shootings in October and November of 2010 twice targeted the Marine Corps museum and once each targeted the Pentagon and military recruiting stations in Woodbridge and Chantilly.

The shootings raised a high level of concerns, prompting authorities to suspect they were related and conducted by an individual with a grievance against the military in general or the Marines specifically.

But the shootings went unsolved until this summer, when Melaku — a naturalized U.S. citizen from Ethiopia — was spotted by police on Fort Myer and ran off, leaving a backpack behind. He was later caught and arrested at Arlington National Cemetery. The incident prompted a massive security scare in and around the Pentagon.

In the backpack police found spent shell casings; five pounds of ammonium nitrate, a common material in homemade explosives; two cans of spray paint; and a notebook in Arabic that contained references to Osama bin Laden, the Taliban and the “path to jihad.”

Melaku eventually admitted to authorities that he planned to desecrate grave markers in the cemetery by spraying Arabic graffiti on them, and to deliberately leave the ammonium nitrate behind.

Nobody was hurt in any of the incidents, but Melaku has been ordered to make $111,000 in restitution for the damage he caused to the buildings, including the Pentagon.

Though no one was hurt, FBI spokeswoman Jacqueline Maguire called the case serious, and credited investigators for arresting Melaku before he did worse. She noted that a search of Melaku’s home produced evidence that Melaku was looking to build a homemade timer.

The defense lawyer, Gregory English, said he has no doubt that his client is legally sane, but said a proper mental-health diagnosis may help his client become a better person while he serves his sentence.

English, himself a former Marine, said after the hearing that his personal experience suggests it’s possible that some sort of post-traumatic stress or dispute with the Marines may have triggered Melaku’s actions rather than any desire to support al-Qaida or the Taliban.

“The facts of the case and what his parents are saying to me about the young man suggests these actions are totally out of character,” English said.

Dana Boente, the top assistant U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, which prosecuted the case, said authorities have no evidence that Melaku suffers from any serious mental-health disorders or that his years in the Marine reserves provided a motive for the crime. He said Melaku never served overseas.

Boente called the crimes “a campaign of calculated and sustained attacks against military installations and memorials in northern Virginia.”

Melaku did not speak during the hearing, except to answer a series of questions from the judge with a soft-spoken, “Yes, sir” and a final “guilty, sir” to formally enter his plea.

As an illegal alien who entered lawfully with a student visa, Krastev needed a legal ID when he dropped out of college and lost his [...]]]> Bulgarian Doitchin Krastev (pictured right) is completing his two-year sentence for stealing the identity of murdered boy Jason Robert Evers (left) and using his name and Social Security number for 15 years.

As an illegal alien who entered lawfully with a student visa, Krastev needed a legal ID when he dropped out of college and lost his legal status.

The Bulgarian must have thought it was a cool idea to steal the identity of Jason Evers, a three-year-old boy who was killed during a 1982 kidnap attempt, something he read in a newspaper. The kid had no more use for his Social Security number, Krastev probably thought, and believed his need entitled him to take it.

However, the Evers family did not take lightly the theft of their boy’s name, and were deeply disturbed to have the old wounds torn open again years after the terrible crime. During the trial, they traveled to Portland to put a face on identity theft.

Below, Bob and Amy Evers, Jason’s father and sister, talked with the press during the Krastev trial.

‘John Doe’ faces deportation after serving sentence for stealing slain Ohio boy’s name, The Oregonian, January 27, 2011

[. . .]

“My heart has been crushed,” said Amy Evers, older sister of the 3-year-old boy who was kidnapped and killed in 1982 near their Ohio home. “You hurt my family because of your selfishness.”

Earlier in the hearing, she had walked out of the courtroom during a video prepared by Krastev’s defense team. It featured his parents, his grandmothers, his younger brother, his dentist, his fiancée, chess and tennis partners, former co-workers at the liquor commission and many others talking about his good character.

Some of them used the name “Jason” when talking about their friend. It was a little too much for Amy Evers and she left.

Later, when it was her turn to speak, she let Krastev have it.

“It hurts me when I hear people call you Jason Evers,” she said, shooting Krastev a glare. He sat at the defense table, wide-eyed, a cheek balanced on his fist. “You,” she said, “are not Jason Evers!”

That was then. Now Krastev has done his time and will hopefully be deported ASAP.

Bulgarian who used boy’s ID getting out of prison, Associated Press, January 24, 2012

BEND, Ore. — A Bulgarian man who assumed the identity of a murdered Ohio boy and became an Oregon liquor enforcement agent is getting out of prison and being handed over to immigration officials for procedures that could lead to his deportation.

Doitchin Krastev was expected to be released Tuesday from federal prison in California into the custody of U.S. immigration officials, The Bend Bulletin reported.

He pleaded guilty in 2010 to passport fraud and identity theft and apologized to the family of Jason Robert Evers, who was killed at age 3 in a 1982 kidnapping attempt.

Krastev wasn’t linked to the killing. He came to the United States for an education in the 1990s, dropped out of college and then took over Evers’ identity.

He was caught because he applied for a passport, and the State Department had begun checking applications against death records.

Virginia Kice, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, said Tuesday that she was trying to confirm that the transfer had occurred as scheduled.

After Krastev was arrested and made a plea deal, deportation proceedings were expected. His lawyer said he hoped to rebuild his life in Bulgaria with an American fiancee.

Kice said immigration authorities would interview Krastev and review the case before deciding on what step to take next, such as asking that he be deported.

Krastev was a child and living in Bulgaria, the son of respected scholars, when Evers was killed.

A U.S. official who befriended the family took in Krastev, who graduated from a U.S. high school and earned a scholarship to Davidson College in Charlotte, N.C. But he did poorly, dropped out, and, facing the possibility of returning to Bulgaria, disappeared.

Investigators and journalists found he spent years in Colorado before moving to Oregon and, using Evers’ name, passing a background check for a job in central and eastern Oregon with Oregon Liquor Control Commission.

The crime aroused disgust and anger around the country when it was learned [...]]]> The opening arguments are scheduled for Monday in the San Francisco trial of Edwin Ramos, accused of murdering Tony Bologna, 48, and his sons Michael, 20, and Matthew, 16, (shown below) who were driving home from a family picnic June 22, 2008.

The crime aroused disgust and anger around the country when it was learned that Ramos was an illegal alien gangster who had committed earlier violent crimes but was not even deported from lawbreaker-friendly San Francisco. See my 2008 article, They Also Kill People in Your Town.

The surviving Bologna family members brought a lawsuit against the city of San Francisco for causing the deaths by dealing so irresponsibly with a dangerous criminal, but the suit was rejected by the court.

More than three and a half years have passed since this horrific time. One might hope that government would have learned from the case how dangerous it is to coddle foreign criminals.

In fact, the state of public safety has arguably gotten worse when illegal aliens are involved. A few examples: Cook County Illinois now releases violent illegal aliens criminals on bail, California has ended checkpoint impounds of vehicles driven by unlicensed drivers and the common sense Secure Communities program from the feds has been rejected by some liberal enclaves (e.g. Massachusetts, Santa Clara County and San Francisco).

The problem is the Raza-fueled campaign against public safety which prefers special rights for foreign criminals even though many of the crime victims are hispanic.

Perhaps the trial will remind the public of how much is at stake.

Edwin Ramos trial to have 2 versions of killings, San Francisco Chronicle, January 22, 2012

Edwin Ramos was either hunting for gang rivals or was an unwitting dupe in the mistaken-identity slayings in San Francisco of a father and two sons, one of the most notorious crimes in the city in recent years.

Those are the competing versions that prosecutors and the defense are expected to present Monday when Ramos, 25, goes on trial for murder in the killings of Tony Bologna, 48, and his sons Michael, 20, and Matthew, 16, who were shot to death driving home in the Excelsior district on a bright Sunday afternoon June 22, 2008.

The case first drew widespread attention for its random brutality. It became a national story when The Chronicle reported that city juvenile-justice officials, relying on San Francisco’s sanctuary-city policy, had twice kept Ramos from possible deportation after he committed gang-related crimes as a minor.

“It’s a big, big case,” said Joseph O’Sullivan, a San Francisco defense attorney who briefly represented Ramos. “He’s alleged to have almost wiped out a family. It’s unheard of. It’s a very small city, and many people knew the family. I hope he gets a fair trial.”

Attorneys and Superior Court Judge Charles Haines have gone to some lengths to find a jury untainted by the furor that surrounded the killings, picking 12 members and eight alternates from an initial pool of more than 1,000 people. Selecting the panel took two weeks.

Vengeance killing?
Assistant District Attorney Harry Dorfman, the lead prosecutor on the case, has identified more than 300 possible witnesses to support his argument that Ramos carried out the killings to avenge an earlier shooting that was part of a feud between the MS-13 gang and its Mission District rivals.

Many of the gang members involved in the feud, which authorities blame for nine slayings, are now behind bars, thanks in part to a federal crackdown that included more than two dozen indictments. Dorfman may call some of them to the stand.

The prosecution’s key witness will be Tony Bologna’s surviving son, who was in the car when his father and brothers were shot and has testified that Ramos pulled the trigger. Prosecutors have asked that he not be named in the media, stressing that he remains under witness protection.

‘He just shot’
The 21-year-old son testified at Ramos’ preliminary hearing that his family was just about home from a family gathering in Fairfield when another driver started “mugging” his father, who made a face as if he didn’t understand. The gunman was about a foot and a half away as he drove next to the Bologna family’s Honda.

Without saying anything, Ramos aimed a chrome handgun and fired at least four times in rapid succession, the son said.

“No words were exchanged. He just let loose on my family,” the son said. “He just shot.”

Prosecutors say Ramos mistook at least one of the Bologna sons for a gang rival.

Ramos’ legal team, headed by Marla Zamora, has listed as many as 100 possible witnesses in his defense. In pretrial hearings, the defense has challenged the surviving Bologna son’s account and blamed Wilfredo “Flaco” Reyesruano – the now-vanished leader of a faction of the MS-13 gang – as the true gunman in the slayings.

Ramos told investigators it was Flaco who mistook the Bologna sons for rivals and opened fire at Congdon and Maynard streets.

“Our position is he (Ramos) was very much giving a friend a ride and that individual, completely unexpectedly, opened fire,” said Andrea Lindsay, who is assisting in the defense.

Gang history
Dorfman is expected to focus on Ramos’ history in the MS-13 gang to show that he was more than a passive participant in the slayings. The prosecutor has lined up many other reputed gang members, some who have been proved in pretrial hearings to be reluctant witnesses.

In portraying him as an innocent, the defense will have to counter Ramos’ troubled history as a juvenile offender.

Ramos was not in the United States legally at the time he was identified as one of three alleged MS-13 members who beat up a man on a Muni bus in the Mission District in 2003. Prosecutors said the attackers had been “checking” passengers to determine what gang they were affiliated with.

Instead of referring him to federal authorities for possible deportation, juvenile authorities placed Ramos in a shelter and later released him to his mother in April 2004.

Four days later, he assaulted a pregnant woman and her brother, and was sentenced to the city’s Log Cabin Ranch for felony attempted robbery. He was released in February 2005, again without juvenile authorities reporting him to federal immigration officials.

The Juvenile Probation Department had ordered employees not to report minors to immigration officials under the agency’s interpretation of San Francisco’s sanctuary policy, which barred city officials from cooperating with deportations.

City’s policy eased
The revelations about Ramos’ history of juvenile offenses fueled a controversy over the policy and ultimately led then-Mayor Gavin Newsom to order that all undocumented juvenile offenders be reported to immigration officials. The policy has since been eased to allow authorities to exercise discretion in deciding whether to report offenders.

Tony Bologna’s widow, Danielle, and daughter sued the city, arguing that the sanctuary policy had ultimately allowed Ramos to commit the killings. A judge dismissed the suit, ruling that cities “generally are not liable for failing to protect individuals against crime.”

Loudmouth jihadist Anjem Choudary has said openly that gays should be stoned to [...]]]> In Britain, hostile Muslims have been marking territory for a while, declaring areas of high infestation “sharia zones” to state their future plans. More recently, some Muslim decided to hand out leaflets, urging their fellow religionists to kill gay people, as Islam recommends.

Loudmouth jihadist Anjem Choudary has said openly that gays should be stoned to death, and he is not the only one.

Considering how much coddling of Muslims has gone on in Britain, it is rather amazing that this case was prosecuted at all.

The three men who distributed leaflets by hand and into mailboxes were tried under an expansion of the hate crime law to make it apply to gay people along with race or religion. They could get up to seven years hard time.

I’m not a lawyer and find the term “hate crime” to be overused, but when Muslims try to incite murder because Allah says to, then government needs to smack down the perps. It would be better not to welcome Muslims into one’s country in the first place, since they are such a poor bet for socialization, but Britain is long past that point now.

Muslim men first to be found guilty of sex hate crime, Daily Telegraph, January 20, 2012

The men distributed a leaflet that said Islam called for anyone caught committing homosexuality to be executed.

They were convicted by a jury at Derby Crown Court of distributing threatening written material intending to stir up hatred on the grounds of sexual orientation.

The case is the first prosecution of its kind since legislation came into force in March 2010.

Ihjaz Ali, Kabir Ahmed and Razwan Javed handed out the pamphlet, called “The Death Penalty?” which showed an image of a mannequin hanging from a noose and quoted Islamic texts that said capital punishment was the only way to rid society of homosexuality.

Mehboob Hussain and Umar Javed, who were also charged with the same offence, were found not guilty by the jury.

Bobbie Cheema, prosecuting, had told jurors: “In this country we have many freedoms. Sometimes we take them for granted perhaps. Our legal system gives us rights and protects those rights. When individuals are charged with serious criminal offences a jury has to hear the evidence, consider the issues and decide whether guilt has been proven, your presence here is one of the ways in which our rights are protected.

“One of the ways in which we organise our society can be summed up in the common phrase, ‘live and let live’. This case is all about the antithesis of that approach to life.

The charges related to one of a series of three leaflets distributed and a fourth not distributed. One was entitled Turn or Burn and featured a burning person in a lake of fire as an image of hell.

The leaflets were distributed after Friday prayers and were part of a protest mounted by a group of Muslim men against the Gay Pride parade due to take place on 10th July, 2010.

Ali had told police he wanted to advertise a Muslim protest against the parade by distributing flyers. Ali was urged by police to take legal advice to ensure the contents of the flyers would not cause offence.

Ali had organised the distribution of the professionally produced colour leaflets and the others were arrested for distributing them.

Ahmed, a father-of-one, told the court he handed out the leaflets as part of his religious beliefs.

He said: “It was my duty as a Muslim to spread what God says about homosexuality.

“The references on the leaflets are historical facts and quote from the Koran.”

Miss Cheema warned the jury: “This case is not about an interference with the defendants’ freedom of religion or freedom to express their religious views in an attempt to education or inform.

“The vast majority of Muslims and indeed other religious people or people with no religion but who have firm views about homosexuality are able to express their views if they wish to in a lawful, moderate and self-controlled way. The Death Penalty leaflet goes well beyond any such temperate discussion.”