Muslim extremists jailed for arson attack on Mohammed book publisher's home



A fanatic who once paraded his baby in an 'I love Al Qaeda' hat was yesterday jailed for firebombing the home of the publisher of a novel about Mohammed.



Sentencing Ali Beheshti, 41, and two accomplices to four and a half years, Mrs Justice Rafferty told them: 'If you choose to live in this country, you live by its rules.'



'There is no such thing as "a la carte citizenship" and, in your case, there is no such thing as "a la carte obedience" to the law.'

Notorious: Ali Beheshti, posing with a gun in this Metropolitan Police photo, admitted conspiracy to endanger life

Beheshti, a follower of hate cleric Abu Hamza, poured diesel through the letterbox of Martin Rynja's £2.5million house and set it alight to 'punish' him for agreeing to release The Jewel of Medina, a fictional account of the Prophet's child bride.



Beheshti achieved notoriety three years ago at a protest against Danish cartoons of Mohammed when he was photographed with his 18-month-old daughter, Farisa, whom he had dressed in a pink bonnet celebrating Al Qaeda.



Beheshti, who has a previous conviction for the attempted murder of his father, described her to reporters as the youngest member of the network.







Accomplices: Abrar Mirza, Abbas Taj and Ali Beheshti (l-r) were sentenced to four-and-a-half years in jail each

Last September, with accomplices Abrar Mirza, 23, and Abbas Taj, 30, he attacked the five-storey home and office of Mr Rynja in Islington, North London.

Cab driver Taj of Forest Gate, East London, acted as the getaway driver as Beheshti and Mirza, a mobile phone salesman of Walthamstow, North East London, poured diesel into the house.



A small fire began but nobody was hurt because police and fire crews arrived in time to smash down the door and put it out.

The defendents used diesel as an accelerant, causing damage to the front door of the publisher's house

The arsonists were seized by armed police as they fled the scene in what officers described as an ' intelligenceled operation'.



Yesterday Andrew Hall QC, for Beheshti, said it was 'an act of protest born of the publication of a book felt by him and other Muslims to be disrespectful, provocative and offensive'.



Novel 'The Jewel of Medina' motivated the extremists to commit the arson attack

Before his arrest Beheshti lived with his family in Ilford, East London. He described himself as a pilot on Farisa's birth certificate.



Beheshti and Mirza had pleaded guilty to conspiracy to recklessly damage property and endanger life at a hearing in April. Taj was convicted of the same offence at Croydon Crown Court in May.



At a sentencing hearing yesterday Mrs Justice Rafferty, sitting at London's Royal Courts of Justice, praised Mr Rynja as a 'principled man' who had exercised critical judgment on a literary work, and stood up to be counted, knowing that publishing it put him at risk.



Mr Rynja's publishing company, Gibson Square Books, bought the rights to the novel after Random House dropped plans to publish it, fearing it could 'incite acts of violence'.

Miss Jones said her book was respectful to Islam, and Mr Rynja said last October that he felt its publication was part of a liberal democracy.



Before his arrest Beheshti lived with his family in a smart semi detached house in Ilford, east London, where a 2007 Mitsubishi 4x4 sits on the drive. He described himself as a pilot on Farisa¹s birth certificate.



His wife, Hannah, 28, is the daughter of a sales consultant for an engineering firm who grew up in a smart home in a Bristol suburb.



Beheshti and Mirza, a mobile phone salesman of Walthamstow, North East London, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to recklessly damage property and endanger life.



Cab driver Taj of Forest Gate, East London was convicted of the same offence at Croydon Crown Court in May .



They were sentenced at the Royal Courts of Justice for administrative reasons.