Pastor Terry Jones:

'I may put Mohammed on trial'

 

Terry Jones, the radical pastor who oversaw the burning of a Koran in his Florida church last month after a mock court hearing, may put the Islamic prophet Mohammed on trial in his next 'day of judgement', he told The Sunday Telegraph. 

 

The pastor first threatened to burn a pile of Korans on last year's ninth anniversary of the Sept 11 terror atrocities Photo: AP

"It is definitely a consideration to stage a trial on the life of Mohammed in the future," he said in interview on Saturday.

Such an inflammatory move would almost certainly trigger further violent protests in the Muslim world. But Mr Jones struck an unapologetic stance, insisting that his actions bore no responsibility for the murders in Mazar-i-Sharif.

The pastor had first threatened to burn a pile of Korans on last year's ninth anniversary of the Sept 11 terror atrocities.

But he backed down under intense pressure, including interventions from President Barack Obama, defense secretary Robert Gates and Gen David Petraeus, the commander of Nato forces in Afghanistan who warned that such a stunt would endanger American lives.

Indeed, Mr Jones said then that a Koran would never be burned in his church.

But he claimed that last month's Koran-burning was different as the Islamic holy book had first been put on trial and was then set alight as punishment after it was found guilty of "crimes against humanity".

He said: "What changed is that we put together a trial. In that sense, we were not going out just to burn the Koran, although the result was that it was burned. If you are found guilty of a crime in the US, you do not get to go home. There has to be a punishment."

The pastor recently handed over the running of his small evangelical church, the Dove World Outreach Center, to his son Luke so that he can focus on the work of Stand Up America, which he founded to fight against what he perceives as militant Islam.

The pastor and his supporters will later this month join a protest against jihad and sharia law in front of the biggest mosque in the US in Dearborn, Michigan, a city with a large Islamic population which Mr Jones described as the "Mecca of America".

He said that any suggestion that the mob who killed United Nations workers had been provoked by his actions was "only making a justification" for murder.

"We find it very tragic any time that someone is murdered but we do not feel any responsibility for that. It definitely does indicate that there is a very radical element of Islam," he said.

"We'd like to see the President of the United States not only condemn these actions but to call on the UN for these people and Muslim-dominated countries to be held accountable."

 

 

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