Dr Hayward (Kiri) dalam satu majlis
bersama Persatuan Tentera Udara
Muslim.
Jurulatih penerbangan Britain berprofil tinggi, Dr Joel Hayward yang juga individu bertanggungjawab melatih Putera William mengejutkan ketua turus angkatan tentera British apabila memeluk Islam dan mengecam tindakan tentera NATO yang menyerang Libya.
Beliau yang dilabelkan sebagai "Ayatollah Turus Angkatan Tentera Udara British" mempersoalkan samada betul Gaddafi benar-benar melancarkan serangan ke atas rakyatnya atau tidak dan dengan membiarkan NATO menyerang Libya hanya akan menimbulkan ketidak percayaan orang ramai terhadap NATO.
Dia membuat kenyataan tersebut dalam sebuah majalah Islamik di sana baru-baru ini. Baca laporannya di sini. Kenyataan tersebut mendapat reaksi negatif dari berbagi pihak yang menegaskan bahawa itu hanyalah kenyataan peribadinya dan tidak ada kena mengena dengan RAF. Baca kat sini.
RAF PILOT CONVERTS TO ISLAM
By Richard Spillett
A TOP RAF pilot trainer has shocked military chiefs by converting to Islam and criticising Britain’s air strikes in Libya.
Dr Joel Hayward launched an attack on the military campaign in a Muslim magazine.
He has been dubbed “the Air Force Ayatollah” by fellow officers.
Dr Hayward, who taught Prince William, 29, at his Top Gun-style training school, stunned bosses by questioning the NATO strikes on tyrant Colonel Gaddafi after he ordered his army to attack civilians.
The 47-year-old dean of RAF training college Cranwell, in Lincolnshire, said: “Various leaders congratulated themselves for preventing an ‘atrocity’ or ‘slaughter’.
“Yet we do not know that Colonel Gaddafi’s army would have ‘slaughtered’ civilians.”
He also slated the UN resolution on Libya and claimed military action would lead to “distrust”.
His article has worried some defence chiefs, who fear he is giving too much time to Islamic activities.
One senior officer yesterday slammed Dr Hayward’s views as “nothing to do with the RAF”.
Concerns were also raised that air cadets were in fear of saying anything that Dr Hayward might consider “anti-Muslim”. It is not the first time Dr Hayward has courted controversy.
In 2000 he was accused of denying the Holocaust after he questioned the number of Jews killed by the Nazis.
An RAF spokesman maintained the doctor’s writings “did not impinge” on his classes at Cranwell.
