THE links between the killer of Manchester police hero Stephen Oake and the mosque where Abu Hamza preached can be revealed today.

Al-Qaida terrorist Kamel Bourgass used the Finsbury Park mosque, in north London, as a safe haven while plotting a deadly terror campaign and stayed there when he was on the run after police discovered a terror factory inside his bedsit.

Security services believe it is "more than likely" that he met Hamza.

Bourgass fled to Manchester in January 2003 where he stabbed Det Con Oake, 40, to death while trying to escape from a flat in Crumpsall, Manchester following a police raid.

He was later sentenced to life for the murder of the father-of-three. For legal reasons, the Manchester Evening News was unable to fully report the connections between Bourgass and the Finsbury Park mosque until today.


Bourgass was under instructions to head for the place of worship when he first entered Britain illegally in January 2000.

Just days before Det Con Oake's murder, police in London had discovered items related to deadly poisons ricin and cyanide, as well as bomb making equipment, in Bourgass's north London bedsit.

The items triggered a police raid on the mosque, where he had photocopied poison recipes.

Bourgass stored them in an envelope which the Immigration Service had addressed to him at the mosque. It had originally contained details of their refusal to grant him asylum in the United Kingdom.