An imam who was gunned down in the street in a mur­der that is thought to have links to ter­ror­ism had been re­placed at his mosque by a Caribbean preach­er in­volved in an at­tempt­ed coup d'�tat25 years ago, the MailOn­line re­port­ed.

Ab­dul Ha­di Ar­wani, 48, was found slumped in a Volk­swa­gen­Pas­sat on Wednes­day morn­ing in Wem­b­ley. The imam, de­scribed as 'the most peace­ful man you could ever wish to meet', had gun wounds to the chest.

He was said to have been em­broiled in dis­pute with his for­mer work­place, the An-Noor mosque in Ac­ton, where he had been re­placed by Has­san Anyab­wile from T&T.There is no sug­ges­tion that ei­ther Mr Anyab­wile or the An-Noor mosque in Ac­ton is sus­pect­ed of any in­volve­ment in his death, with counter ter­ror­ism po­lice still in­ves­ti­gat­ing.

The name of Mr Anyab­wile, 53, ap­pears in Caribbean par­lia­ment doc­u­ments sur­round­ing a vi­o­lent coup at­tempt in 1990 by Mus­lim group Ja­maat al Mus­limeen.

Over the course of six days, al­most 100 mem­bers of the Is­lam­ic or­gan­i­sa­tion were in­volved in hold­ing hostages at gun­point in the is­land's cap­i­tal, Port of Spain.

The city's po­lice head­quar­ters were blown up in the coup, with Mr Anyab­wile de­scribed by a Par­lia­men­tary re­port of be­ing 're­spon­si­ble for or­gan­is­ing the use' of the ex­plo­sives in­volved.

The coup end­ed af­ter six days with the in­sur­gents' sur­ren­der­ing on the con­di­tion of amnesty on Au­gust 1. Twen­ty-four peo­ple had been killed in the an­ar­chy.

It is un­der­stood Mr Anyab­wile re­placed Mr Ar­wani at the An-Noor mosque in Ac­ton, West Lon­don, some time around 2013.He is reg­is­tered as hav­ing lived in Lon­don since 2005.

Mr Ar­wani stepped down from the An-Noor mosque last year fol­low­ing re­peat­ed ac­cu­sa­tions that it was linked to ex­trem­ism.

When ap­proached this af­ter­noon Mr Anyab­wile, who be­came par­tial­ly dis­abled af­ter be­ing shot four times in legs, de­nied any knowl­edge of any dis­pute.

Ar­riv­ing for mid­day prayers the man, who was helped in­to a wheel­chair by a se­cu­ri­ty guard, told the MailOn­line: 'Feud? I know noth­ing about that.

'All I can say is from Al­lah we come, and to Al­lah we re­turn.'

When con­tact­ed to­day an­oth­er mem­ber of staff at the mosque re­fused to an­swer ques­tions about Mr Ar­wani's time there.

A state­ment print­ed on a piece of pa­per and taped to its front door read: 'We have with great sad­ness heard of the un­for­tu­nate death of Shaykh [sic] Ab­dul­ha­di Ar­warni who was the for­mer Imam of the An­noor [sic] Cul­tur­al & Com­mu­ni­ty Cen­tre who served from 2005 to 2011, he will be sad­ly missed.

But one friend of the late imam said the dis­pute be­tween the fa­ther of six and the An-Noor Mosque had been heat­ed.'We send our sym­pa­thies and con­do­lences to his fam­i­ly, the Mus­lim com­mu­ni­ty and friends. May Al­lah for­give him and open the doors of mer­cy on­to him.'

So­lic­i­tor­Mo­ham­mad Bas­sam Tablieh, 43, said there had been con­flict about the 'run­ning' of the mosque.

There is no sug­ges­tion that ei­ther Mr Anyab­wile or the An-Noor mosque in Ac­ton is sus­pect­ed of any in­volve­ment in his death, with counter ter­ror­ism po­lice still in­ves­ti­gat­ing.

Scot­land Yard of­fi­cers called in the spe­cial­ist di­vi­sion be­cause 'of their ex­per­tise in the man­age­ment of in­ves­ti­ga­tions with in­ter­na­tion­al di­men­sions and an es­tab­lished li­ai­son net­work abroad'.

'The in­ves­ti­ga­tion re­mains in its very ear­ly stages and of­fi­cers re­main open-mind­ed about the mo­tive,' a spokesman added.

Ear­li­er this week sources close to the Mr Ar­wani said they feared he may have been killed by sup­port­ers of the Syr­i­an pres­i­dent Bashar-al-As­sad - of whom the imam was a fierce crit­ic.

De­scrib­ing his fa­ther as 'the most peace­ful man you could meet,' one of his six chil­dren, Murhaf, said he was 'ac­tive­ly in­volved in the fight against ex­trem­ism'.

'He did not care what your back­ground, race or sta­tus was. He did not care if you were rich or poor.

'He just want­ed to help peo­ple in need. He spoke up and out against the crime of ter­ror and op­pres­sion wher­ev­er he found it,' he said in a state­ment.

Lat­er his 23-year-old daugh­ter, El­ham Ar­wani, said while her fa­ther was open­ly 'against As­sad', she did not think that was the rea­son be­hind his killing.

But friends and neigh­bours claimed crit­ics of the As­sad regime had been tar­get­ed in the area, with some res­i­dents who dis­played green flags, a sign of op­po­si­tion to the Syr­i­an gov­ern­ment, hav­ing their tyres slashed.

Mr Ar­wani grew up in Hama, the site of a no­to­ri­ous 1982 mas­sacre where up to 40,000 civil­ians were killed by the Syr­i­an Army un­der the or­ders of Hafez al-As­sad, the cur­rent pres­i­dent's fa­ther.

He fled the coun­try as a 16-year-old, tak­ing refuge in the UK while his par­ents faced rou­tine ques­tion­ing of his where­abouts for years.

One of the mourn­ers who gath­ered in his mem­o­ry at Na­di Park Roy­al in Willes­den Junc­tion, north west Lon­don,said he had re­turned to Syr­ia in re­cent years to dis­suade fight­ers from align­ing them­selves with the Gov­ern­ment.

The source claimed Mr Ar­wani stopped go­ing to the coun­try on ad­vice from the Turk­ish au­thor­i­ties.

The An-Noor Mosque, where Mr Ar­wani used to be one of the main imams, has a rep­u­ta­tion for host­ing fun­da­men­tal­ist speak­ers.

It be­came no­to­ri­ous in 2013 when a ter­ror sus­pect went there and changed in­to a burqa in or­der to es­cape sur­veil­lance then went on the run.

Mo­hammed Ahmed Mo­hamed has been miss­ing for 16 months, and was last seen en­ter­ing An-Noor dressed as a man be­fore leav­ing in a full-length cov­er­ing de­signed for women which ob­scured his iden­ti­ty.

He was sub­ject to a Ter­ror­ism Pre­ven­tion and In­ves­ti­ga­tion Mea­sure, which re­strict the move­ments of peo­ple sus­pect­ed of in­volve­ment in ter­ror­ism.

Oth­er ex­trem­ists linked to the mosque in­clude Uth­man Mustafa Ka­mal, the son of hate preach­er Abu Hamza, who has reg­u­lar­ly led prayers at An-Noor.

More in­fo

Al­most 25 years ago, around 100 mem­bers of the rad­i­cal Is­lam­ic group Ja­maat-al-Mus­limeen stormed Trinidad and To­ba­go's Par­lia­ment in Port of Spain.

They were de­mand­ing that the then Prime Min­is­ter, Arthur Robin­son, re­sign and that new elec­tions be held, ac­cus­ing the leader of wild ex­trav­a­gance while, they said, its work­ing class­es went hun­gry.

The rebels blew up Port of Spain's po­lice head­quar­ters and stormed a state-run tele­vi­sion chan­nel in a bid to take con­trol of the Trinida­di­an cap­i­tal.

The Mus­limeen's leader, Yasin Abu Bakr, ap­peared omi­nous­ly on air dur­ing the first day of the coup at­tempt.

Among one of their hostages was Mr Robin­son. The Prime Min­is­ter was shot and beat­en dur­ing the six-day coup.

Vi­o­lence and loot­ing rav­aged the city as all those who had been in the build­ings when the Mus­limeen stormed re­mained in their cap­ture.

On its sixth day, the rebels agreed to sur­ren­der on the con­di­tion of amnesty - re­leas­ing what re­main­ing hostages they were keep­ing un­harmed.

They were all ar­rest­ed and charged with trea­son but lat­er re­leased af­ter pro­duc­ing copies of an amnesty that had been agreed when bro­ker­ing an end to the coup.

Anyab­wile, for­mer­ly known in the Caribbean as­Beville Mar­shall, is thought to have sep­a­rat­ed from the Mus­limeen in 2001.

Years lat­er he was shot four times in the legs, leav­ing him in need of a wheel­chair. He had tried to es­tab­lish his own Is­lamist group, ac­cord­ing to the Trinida­di­an press.

In 2004 a lo­cal re­port claimed he had been turned down for asy­lum by the Home Of­fice hav­ing told them that his life would be in dan­ger if he re­turned to the Caribbean is­land.

Source: Dai­ly Mail