The "Lionheart" lies low in Malta.

AN anti-Muslim crusader who admits he might have inspired Norwegian mass murderer Anders Behring Breivik has been traced to Malta. Paul Ray, who blogs as "Lionheart", borrowing the soubriquet of King Richard I,was one of the founders of the English Defence League(EDL), but says he left England fearing arrest for inciting racial hatred.

Interviewed by Daily Telegraph reporters, Ray conceded that he had been in direct contact with Breivik online, “I am being implicated as his mentor. I definitely could have been his inspiration. ...But what he did was pure evil. I could never use what he has done to further my own beliefs.”

The Telegraph also discloses that Ray played host to Johnny “Mad Dog” Adair, former leader of the Ulster Freedom Fighters in Malta last February, adding that "He is also known to be friends with Nick Greger, a German “known as Nazi Nick,” who describes himself as a 'former neo-Nazi-leader, convicted terrorist, militiaman, artist, book writer and preacher;”.

It says Greger posted a video online them together with Adair on Youtube last year, titled “The Gathering.” The film shows them visiting historic churches around Malta, cut together with footage showing UFF terrorists and Greger with a Kalashnikov, set to a trance music track and illustrated with slides of Templar Knights.

Greger was a supporter of Liberian ruler Charles Taylor. Breivik claims to have travelled to the Ivory Coast and Liberia in 2002 telling his friend he was planning to “research the potential to smuggle blood diamonds and selling them in London.” In London soon afterwards, he said he had attended the founding meeting of the “Knights Templar Europe” explaining that he “joined the session after visiting one of the initial facilitators, a Serbian Crusader Commander and war hero, in Monrovia, Liberia.”

Breivik wrote that due to “EU persecution for alleged crimes against Muslims” the Serbian was “living at one point in Liberia.” This fits with reports that Serbian mercenaries, including members of the notorious Scorpions unit accused of the massacre at Srebrenica, had found further employment in Africa, both in Zaire (Congo) and Liberia. In his 1,500-page "compendium", Breivik wrote that his “assigned mentor” at the London meeting was “referred to as Richard (the Lionhearted).”

Paul Ray, originally from Luton, was arrested in Britain in 2008 over blog postings allegedly inciting racial hatred but said he was never charged. He left the country the same year.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/norway/8669670/Oslo-attacks-EDL-member-Paul-Ray-admits-he-may-have-been-Anders-Breiviks-inspiration.html

Further information about Paul Ray comes from Richard Bartholomew's well-informed blog 'Notes on Religion' which says the Luton man played a part in the creation of the English Defence League, although he was quickly sidelined and created his own breakaway “St George Division”.

"He also moved to Malta, where his means of sustaining himself financially remain mysterious, and he became friends with Nick Greger, an ex-neo-Nazi (now reformed and with a black wife) who in turn is friends with the exiled Northern Ireland loyalist leader Johnny Adair. Ray and Greger at one point claimed that Adair would help them to reclaim leadership of the EDL; Ray has suggested that two of the EDL’s leaders are of Irish Catholic ethnic background and that there is a link with the IRA (this accusation explains why EDL leaders have been so keen in turn to claim a link between Ray and Breivik).

"Ray announced the launch of the “The Ancient Order of Templar Knights” in late 2009, to the irritation of an American blogger who uses that name; it is highly unlikely that there are more than a handful of members. One complicating factor is that someone has tried to create the impression that Ray is a neo-Nazi. In August 2009 I received an email from someone faking Ray’s identity and using a similar email address. The message directed me to a website which had reposted some of Ray’s blog posts along with a new posting praising the neo-Nazis of Stormfront; whoever did this obviously wanted me to write a bogus exposé, perhaps to cause trouble for Ray or perhaps to make me look foolish. A few weeks later, the real Ray complained on his site that someone had planted fake messages in his name on a website called RevolutionMuslim. It seems to me that a thorough police investigation exploring all avenues ought to check out who created this bogus site, and why. I have my own suspicions, based on other bogus communications I have received.

"By his own account, Ray was a petty criminal and drug addict in his youth, although he changed his ways after converting to Christianity. According to a Dunstable on Sunday news report from c.2000 (not online), he worked for a time with the police as a speaker in local schools warning against drugs, while running a computer business. Ray blames the failure of this business on local Muslim gangs, and this seems to have been his catalyst for becoming involved in political activism".

http://barthsnotes.wordpress.com/2011/07/28/a-primer-on-paul-ray/

Today's Times also picks up on Paul Ray, but not on his connection with 'Mad Dog' Adair. Murdoch's newspaper also mentions a picture with an AK47 in Palestine. Maybe this is meant to leave readers with the impression Ray had some kind of connection with Palestinian guerrillas, but as Ray's 'Lionheart' blogs have made clear he had no sympathy with the Palestinians and was surprised to find them living near the Damascus Gate in East Jerusalem.

Here is what Richard Bartholomew tells us:

"He first came to wider public notice in 2006, after claiming to have infiltrated the International Solidarity Movement while on a visit to Israel. Ray joined several foreigners who had come to Israel to be part of the ISM on a trip to Jericho in the West Bank, where they allowed themselves to be photographed posing with guns; Ray then forwarded these photos to Lee Kaplan’s Stop the ISM, which publicised them and described him as a “Stop the ISM operative” (The ISM responded here, stating that the individuals in the photos had acted on their own initiative, and “had not attended ISM’s mandatory intensive non-violence training and were new to the country” ). Ray later claimed that his actions also amounted to an exposé of Antifa, as Paul Stott explains (and debunks) here.

As well as “Ray”, Paul Ray uses the names “Paul Cinato” and “Paul Sonato”, and while undercover in Israel and the West Bank was “Paul Andrews”; “Ray” is reportedly his mother’s maiden name.

American anti-Muslim campaigner Pam Geller identified Ray as the Christian "sleuth" who had been the source for a story attacking the ISM. The FrontPageMag story by Lee Kaplan appeared in September 2006, and claimed:

One of our volunteers in the United Kingdom for Stop the ISM managed to infiltrate the ISM late last June in the Holy Land where the ISM operates in direct support of terrorists. Our volunteer (who prefers to remain anonymous to avoid retaliatory attacks) has had prior experience going undercover for the police in the UK. The photos and intelligence he brought back are proving invaluable to intelligence agencies watching the ISM and have been in official hands for over a month prior to this publication.

But later when asked about the English Defence League on her blog, Geller argued that:

I have found Paul Ray to be dishonest and duplicitous. I broke with him in 2007 when he tried to strong arm me to support the BNP. He is abusive. And yet has the indecency to say he has many Jewish friends and then cite me for example, years later. He derides the EDL because they threw him out and yet, he had the audacity to start a new group calling it EDL: St German division despite EDL protestations.They asked him repeatedly not to be associated with EDL^[20].

She adds:

I have researched the EDL and I am comfortable with the EDL. I stand with EDL. They are NOT BNP but the campaign to smear them is relentless. The EDL has my confidence in fighting a global scourge. If, at any time, they take action or do something counter to our fight, I will be first to call them out on it.