A senior instructor in the pilot school of Britain's Royal Air Force (RAF), Dr Joel Hayward , 47, converts to Islam. The English Daily Star (8/7) reported with the headline “RAF pilot converts to Islam”, Hayward's decision to embrace Islam shocked the country's military leaders.
In an article he wrote in a Muslim magazine, Hayward strongly condemns the action of NATO's bombardment against Libya, something very rarely done by the people in the West, which he considers as massacring the civilians in Benghazi.
The newspaper reported that Hayward was of the mentor the pilots who led military operations against Muammar Gaddafi in Libya. In the report, he also doubted NATO's action that states they do not commit mass murder of civilians.
He is the dean of the college Cranwell and because of the highness of his rank and skill in the British Air Force, he is nicknamed “the Air Force Ayatollah” by fellow officers.
Hayward was the coach of Prince William at a “Top Gun” style pilot school. He taught Prince William when training to be a helicopter pilot in Sandhurst.
It is not the first time the New Zealand-born academic has attracted controversy. In 2000, he was accused of denying the Holocaust after the publication of a thesis he had written in 1993 questioning the number of Jews killed. At hat time he was studying at the University of Canterbury. He later studied at Massey University in Palmerston North.
A senior officer had expressed his concern, Hayward was more focused on “Islamic activities that have nothing to do with the RAF”. He also accused Hayward of giving preferential treatment to Muslim cadets and making other students take a softly, softly line when writing about “Muslim terrorists” or “Islamic extremists”.
Another officer claimed cadets and lecturers ‘are in fear’ of expressing anything that might be construed as anti-Muslim sentiment. "Anyone who fails to follow the line that Islam is a peace-loving religion is hauled into his office for re-education," he said.
(Mel/Daily Star/Mail One/ddhongkong.org).*
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