Career
He was extradited to the United States and arraigned in October 2012. Al-Fawwaz appears in UN 1267 Committee's list of individuals belonging to or associated with al-Qaeda, and is embargoed as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist by the US Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control. According to the Treasury statement, al-Fawwaz was born on August 25, 1962.
He moved to London in 1994. He was appointed by Osama bin Laden as the first head of the media organ called the Advice and Reform Committee in London, where he met Adel Abdel Bari and Abu Qatada, amongst others. In 1995, while bin Laden was in Sudan, al-Fawwaz was said to be attempting to pave the way for bin Laden to move to Britain.
He was arrested as part of Operation Challenge, which arrested seven men living in Britain through use of the Prevention of Terrorism Act 1989, accusing them of links to al-Jihad. One of the men was charged with possession of a weapon. L'Houssaine Kherchtou, testifying for the United States, claimed that al-Fawwaz had been the leader of an "Abu Bakr Siddique camp", which he contradictingly placed in Hayatabad, Pakistan or Khost, Afghanistan.
His trial, along with his co-defendant Abu Anas al Libi, aka “Nazih al Raghie,” aka “Anas al Sebai,” was scheduled to begin on 3 November 2014, before Judge Lewis A. Kaplan. At the same time, his co-conspirator, Abdel Bari, pled guilty. He was sentenced to life on 15 May 2015.
The term Londonistan is due in large part to his activities.
