Muslim group's anti-gay leaflet was hate crime, court told Left to right, Ihjaz Ali, Mehboob Hussain, Umar Javed, Razwan Javed, and Kabir Ahmed. A group of Muslim men publicly distributed a leaflet calling for gay people to be given the death sentence, a court has heard. The pamphlet was entitled The Death Penalty? and showed an image of a mannequin hanging from a noose. It said sodomy was a sin that led to hell, that it used to be punished by hanging, and that people practising and allowing homosexuality would suffer, the court was told. Five men - Ihjaz Ali, 42, Mehboob Hussain, 45, Umar Javed, 38, Razwan Javed, 27, and Kabir Ahmed, 28, all of Derby - are alleged to have handed out the document outside and near the Jamia mosque in in the city in July 2010, and to have put it through people's letterboxes in the neighbourhood. They are accused of stirring up hatred on the grounds of sexual orientation, in the first prosecution of its kind since legislation came into force in March 2010. They deny the charges. Opening the case at Derby crown court, the prosecutor, Bobbie Cheema, said the case was an example of a hate crime. She told the jury of seven men and five women: "The essence of this case will come down to this: an allegation of a hate crime - that these five defendants were part of a small group of men who distributed horrible, threatening literature, with quotations from religious sources and with pictures on them, which were designed to stir up hatred and hostility against homosexual people." Cheema showed the jury three leaflets the men handed out, including The Death Penalty? She said the court would hear from witnesses who had received them. The two other leaflets were made and used to help publicise a protest against a gay pride parade in Derby, she said. "The leaflets you will see are not educational or simply informative, they are, we suggest, threatening, offensive, frightening and nasty," Cheema said. The death penalty leaflet, which says execution is the only way the "immoral sin" of homosexuality can be erased from society, was handed out to people outside the Jamia mosque after Friday prayers on 2 July 2010. Cheema said a police officer near the mosque was handed a copy by Razwan Javed, and then a second by Ahmed in nearby Madeley Street. The court heard that this came after two other leaflets had been distributed in the streets and through letterboxes. The first, Turn or Burn, showed images of a burning lake of fire and an image of hell, and stated that the decriminalisation of homosexuality was the root cause of all problems, Cheema said. The second used the word gay as an acronym for "God abhors you." Cheema said Ali first approached police a few weeks before the planned gay pride parade to discuss a protest by members of the Muslim community, and was advised that any placards, signs, flyers or speeches should be carefully worded so as not to break the law. Members of the public complained about the first two leaflets, and on 1 July Ali met police again and told them his group had been giving them out, Cheema said. He was advised that officers were investigating the leaflets to see whether any criminal offences had been committed. Ali showed police an A4 page of slogans intended for use on placards, the court heard. Some had been crossed out by his solicitor, he said, and he asked police to check the remaining ones. Cheema said the slogans included "Stay gay and you will pay," and "Adam and Eve, not Steve." Ali was eventually refused permission for the protest because he had not applied to the council in time, the jury was told. Cheema said a fourth, undistributed leaflet, Dead Derby, had been found. It described homosexuality as a "vile, ugly, cancerous disease" and asked the question: "Gay today, paedophile tomorrow?" She told the jury the charges were based purely upon the death penalty leaflet. The prosecutor said: "You will have to assess quite how much Mr Ali wanted to carry out a lawful and legal protest and quite how much of what he wanted was a shield he could hide behind from the consequences of what he really hoped to achieve."