Finally gone: Cleric Abu Hamza has lost his eight-year battle to remain in the UK
Radical Muslim cleric Abu Hamza is due to land in the U.S this morning on a place after being extradited late last night just hours after judges threw out his last-ditch bid to stay in the UK today.
In the early hours of the morning Home Secretary Theresa May confirmed the hate preacher had left Britain, adding that she was pleased they had finally be removed.
The Islamist fanatic lost the last of his countless appeals in a legal farce that has seen him thwart extradition for more than eight years at a cost to taxpayers of millions of pounds.
An armoured police van collected the hate preacher from HMP Long Lartin in Worcestershire at around 7.30pm, just hours after the decision was made.
The van, heavily flanked by a number of other police vehicles with their emergency lights on, drove more than 130 miles to the U.S Air Force base RAF Mildenhall in Suffolk.
Two planes carrying Hamza - and four other terror suspects who also lost their legal bid - took off shortly before midnight.
The convoy of vehicles with blue flashing lights earlier entered the military base through a side entrance at 10.10pm after completing the journey in just under three hours.
Paperwork was then completed and after years of fighting against it, the group were successfully handed over to US marshals, who were waiting to escort him on the 3,700 mile flight to the United States.
Speaking after the US-bound flights had taken off, Mrs May said: 'I am pleased the decision of the court meant that these men, who used every available opportunity to frustrate and delay the extradition process over many years, could finally be removed.
'This government has co-operated fully with the courts and pressed at every stage to ensure this happened.'
She added: 'We have worked tirelessly, alongside the US authorities, the police and the prison service, to put plans in place so that tonight these men could be handed over within hours of the court's decision.
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The Gulfstream aircraft believed to contain Cleric Abu Hamza takes off from RAF Mildenhall in Suffolk just hours after he lost his final legal fight to remain in the Britain
The plane shortly before it took off from the American air base, where it had been waiting for a number of days
The convoy of terror suspects in armoured police vans on their way to the American air base in the dark last night .
'It is right that these men, who are all accused of very serious offences, will finally face justice.'
Yesterday Hamza’s lawyers – in a move condemned as a blatant delaying tactic – had gone back to court again to claim he was unfit to stand trial.
They said the ‘harsh’ conditions in his cell at HMP Belmarsh had left him unwell, sleep-deprived and depressed – and demanded an MRI scan.
After a three-day hearing, a judge at the High Court in London yesterday said he was ‘wholly unpersuaded’ by their claims, adding: ‘The sooner he is put on trial, the better.’
Making clear no further appeals would be allowed in the case, Sir John Thomas, President of the Queen’s Bench Division, rejected the idea that Hamza was unfit to plead.
If depressed, he said, Hamza could get anti-depressants in the US.
He also criticised delays in the extradition process, saying it was ‘unacceptable’ that the case should have taken so long, and warning of ‘real dangers’ of a system that allows repeated appeals on issues that had already been decided.
The judges also rejected legal challenges by Babar Ahmad, Syed Ahsan, Khaled Al-Fawwaz and Adel Abdul Bary, who were part of the convoy to arrive at the airbase.
A 20-seater Gulfstream V jet owned by the US Department of Justice and a privately-owned Dassault Falcon 900 jet were visible from the airfield perimeter.
The two white aircraft were in stark contrast to the base's fleet of United States Air Force KC-135 fuel tanker jets and C-130 transport planes.
A cavalcade of police vehicles carrying Hamza leaving HMP Long Lartin in Worcestershire tonight
A heavily guarded vehicle left the prison just hours after Hamza lost his eight-year extradition battle
Three police 4x4s, two armoured vans and a police people carrier pictured arriving at Long Lartin prison on Friday evening
Official flight records reveal that the twin-engine Gulfstream jet arrived at RAF Mildenhall on Tuesday night after a six hour and 27 minute flight from Regan National airport in Washington DC.
On his arrival in the U.S, the hate preacher – who once described the UK as a ‘toilet’ – will be held in custody in New York and then put on trial.
He is expected to be transferred to the Special Housing Unit of the Metropolitan Correctional Centre in Manhattan. Previous terror suspects held there have been kept in solitary confinement for 23 hours a day.
A US Embassy spokeswoman said: 'These extraditions mark the end of a lengthy process of litigation through the UK courts and the ECHR.
'The US government agrees with the ECHR's findings that the conditions of confinement in US prisons - including in maximum security facilities - do not violate European standards.
'The law enforcement relationship between the United States and United Kingdom is predicated on trust, respect, and the common goals of protecting our nations and eliminating safe havens for criminals, including terrorists.'
Labour former home secretary Lord Reid called on Mrs May to carry out a review of the systems and proceedings in the case.
'It is in the interests of justice that those committing very serious crimes are tried as quickly as possible as is consistent with the interests of justice," he said.
'It is not just for anyone with proceedings such as these which last between 14 and eight years. It is not just for the victims of these crimes or for the public, or indeed for the accused themselves."
He said there was an 'overwhelming public interest in the proper functioning of the extradition arrangements and the honouring of extradition treaties'.
Protest: A man in favour of the extradition of Abu Hamza stands among protesters with the sign 'Sling His Hook, Hamza Out!' outside the Royal Courts of Justice
'Honk if you want Hamza out': A demonstrator holds a banner for the extradition of Abu Hamza al-Masri outside The Royal Courts of Justice
On the run: A demonstrator against the extradition of Abu Hamza and four other terror suspects runs off with a banner after taking it from a protestor with a different view point.
Hamza, 54, who is missing his right hand and an eye, has celebrated the September 11 terror attacks, preached jihad to a young congregation, and landed the British taxpayer with a bill running into millions of pounds for his detention and legal costs.
Once in the U.S, Hamza will face 11 counts of criminal conduct related to the taking of 16 hostages in Yemen in 1998, advocating violent jihad in Afghanistan in 2001 and conspiring to establish a jihad training camp in Bly, Oregon, between June 2000 and December 2001.
If found guilty the 55-year-old is likely to die behind bars.
Hamza, who was jailed for seven years for soliciting to murder and inciting racial hatred in 2006, first faced an extradition request from the Americans in 2004.
All five cases returned to the High Court after judges at the European Court of Human Rights refused to intervene and stop the Home Secretary extraditing them.
Between 1999 and 2006, the men were indicted on various terrorism charges in America.
Ahmad, a computer expert from south London, and Ahsan are accused of offences including using a website to provide support to terrorists and conspiracy to kill, kidnap, maim or injure persons or damage property in a foreign country.
They wanted their removal stopped so that they could challenge a decision by the Director of Public Prosecutions not to allow British businessman Karl Watkin, a campaigner against the UK’s extradition arrangements with the United States, to bring prosecutions against them in the UK.
Emotional: Police restrain demonstrators protesting outside the Royal Courts of Justice
High tensions: Police clash with supporters of Abu Hamza after members of the group stole a placard from a man who was calling for the extradition of Hamza outside the High Court
Followers: Hamza used to preach jihad to a young congregation near Finsbury Park Mosque
Bary and Al-Fawwaz were indicted - with Osama bin Laden and 20 others - for their alleged involvement in, or support for, the bombing of US embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam in 1998.
Al-Fawwaz faces more than 269 counts of murder.
Al-Fawwaz faces more than 269 counts of murder.
A Home Office spokesman said yesterday afternoon: 'We welcome the High Court decision on Abu Hamza and others. We are now working to extradite these men as quickly as possible.'
Dismissing the five cases, Sir John announced: 'It follows that their extradition to the United States of America may proceed immediately.'
He told the packed court it was important to make six general observations.
He said: 'First, as is apparent from what we have set out in summary, each of these claimants long ago exhausted the procedures in the United Kingdom.
'They then applied to the European Court of Human Rights on a number of matters. That failed.
Support: Police officers watch demonstrators during a protest in support of Islamist cleric Abu Hamza al-Masri
Clashes: Demonstrators scuffle with police outside The Royal Courts of Justice in London as radical Islamic cleric Abu Hamza al-Masri and four other terror suspects lose their battle to stay in the UK
Heated: The crowded scene out side The Royal Courts of Justice in London as supporters of Hamza react to the judges' decision
'There can be no doubt that each has, over the many years, either taken or had the opportunity to take every conceivable point to prevent his extradition to the United States.
'Second, there is an overwhelming public interest in the proper functioning of the extradition arrangements and the honouring of extradition treaties.
'It is also in the interest of justice that those accused of very serious crimes, as each of these claimants is in these proceedings, are tried as quickly as possible as is consistent with the interests of justice.'
The judge added: 'It is unacceptable that extradition proceedings should take more than a relatively short time, to be measured in months not years.
'It is not just to anyone that proceedings such as these should last between 14 and eight years.
Campaign: Demonstrators hold banners calling for a stop to extraditions outside The Royal Courts of Justice in London
Final fight: Abu Hamza's battle against extradition lasted eight years but has finally ended today
Legal fight: Hamza's QC Alun Jones appealed to the High Court (pictured) that Hamza's deteriorating health might be caused by sleep deprivation
'Thirdly, it is necessary to emphasise the importance of finality in litigation and the particular importance of that principle in extradition cases because of the public interest in an efficient process, the need to adhere to international obligations and to avoid a recurrence of the delays which have so disfigured the extradition process in the past and to which successive appeals over time can subject it.'
Hamza once appeared to embrace Western society and worked as a bouncer in a Soho nightclub. He had a reputation for socialising and heavy drinking when he first came to Britain from Egypt 30 years ago.
Born in Alexandria, he studied civil engineering and in 1984 married a British woman, Valerie Fleming. But throughout the 1980s he slowly began to turn towards a fundamentalist interpretation of the Koran.
In 1990 he divorced his wife and returned to Egypt where he reinvented himself as a Muslim 'holy man' or sheikh. He travelled to Pakistan and then on to Afghanistan which was at the time gripped by civil war as differing factions fought to fill the power vacuum left by the retreat of Russian troops.
'Justice is only from Islam': Protestors demonstrate against the intended extradition of Abu Hamza to America on terrorism charges outside the Royal Courts of Justice
'Muslims Rise Up': Veiled female Muslims holding up various slogans outside the court
It is unclear if he fought there but when he returned to the UK with his British passport in the early 1990s he was missing his right hand and an eye. He claims he lost the hand fighting jihad in Afghanistan.
In 1996 he re-emerged at Finsbury Park Mosque in north London preaching jihad to a young congregation.
Then in January 1999 three British tourists were killed in Yemen, drawing public attention to the civil war between fundamentalists and the secular government there, which accused Abu Hamza of using his mosque to recruit Islamic warriors to the fundamentalist cause.
He was alleged to have been the leader of a cell called Supporters of Sharia. Yemen said that it wanted him extradited.
'Release The Muslim Hostages': Supporters of Abu Hamza hold up a huge banner while one talks to the crowds outside the Royal Courts of Justice on a microphone
Lost appeal: Ashfaq Ahmad, the father of suspect Babar Ahmad Ashfaq Ahmad, speaks to the media outside the Royal Courts of Justice
But Hamza continued to court controversy. Following the September 11 attacks in the US, he said: 'Many people will be happy, jumping up and down at this moment'.
'WE WILL NEVER ABANDON OUR FIGHT FOR JUSTICE'
Babar Ahmad said today that he would be extradited to the U.S. to face terror charges 'with his head held high'.
Computer expert Ahmad, who has been in jail without trial since 2004 while fighting extradition, is accused of being involved in a website which encouraged terrorism and which, while operated from London, was hosted in the US.
In a statement, Ahmad who has pleaded to be charged and tried in Britain, said: 'Today I have lost my eight-year and two-month battle against extradition to the US.
'I would like to thank all those over the years who supported me and my family: lawyers, politicians, journalists and members of the public from all walks of life.
'By exposing the fallacy of the UK’s extradition arrangements with the US, I leave with my head held high having won the moral victory.'
His father Ashfaq Ahmad, 77, from Tooting, London, said: 'After over 40 years of paying taxes in this country, I am appalled that the system has let me down in a manner more befitting of a third world country than one of the world’s oldest democracies.
'It seems that the Metropolitan Police, the CPS and even the court have all colluded to implement a pre-determined decision which was made in Washington.
'We will never abandon our struggle for justice and the truth will eventually emerge of what will be forever remembered as a shameful chapter in the history of Britain.'
In February 2006, Hamza was jailed in the UK for seven years for soliciting murder and inciting racial hatred, and it has been suggested that it was racial abuse of one of his sons that turned him into a critic of Western life.
From his maximum-security prison cells at Belmarsh in south east London and Long Lartin in Worcestershire, he has fought extradition for years, claiming the prospect of solitary confinement in one of the US's 'supermax high-security jails and sentences of life imprisonment without parole would breach a European ban on 'torture or inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment'.
But human rights judges ruled in April this year that there would be no violation of the European Human Rights Convention if the UK extradited him to the US to face a range of terrorist charges.
After his bid to appeal against the decision in the court's Grand Chamber was rejected by a panel of judges last month, the Home Office said it wanted to hand over Hamza to the US authorities as quickly as possible.
Yet another appeal, this time back at the High Court in London, led to Britain's most senior judge, Lord Chief Justice Lord Judge, declaring that such delays in cases like this were a 'source of real fury'.
The extradition was again put on hold, with Hamza's legal team claiming a brain scan was needed to establish whether he was unfit to plead because of degenerative problems.
But Sir John Thomas, president of the Queen's Bench Division, suggested in the course of legal argument that if there was a risk of a degenerative condition, 'the sooner he is put on trial the better - I don't conceivably see how a delay can conceivably be in the interests of justice'.
Under the U.S. extradition agreement with the UK, British authorities insist they neither face the death penalty nor the prospect of being sent to Guantanamo Bay as terrorism detainees.
'Deteriorating health': Abu Hamza asked the High Court to grant him time for an MRI scan as he renewed a long-running legal battle to halt his extradition from the UK to the US
Charges: Imam Abu Hamza al-Masri, pictured addressing his followers near Finsbury Park mosque, north London, in March 2004, now faces terror charges in America
Radical: Hamza faces 11 counts of criminal conduct connected to the kidnapping of 16 hostages in Yemen in 1998
TIMELINE OF ABU HAMZA'S BATTLE TO STAY IN THE UK
Hamza, who was born Mustafa Kamel Mustafa in Alexandria, Egypt, in April 1958, came to the UK to study in the early 1980s. He met and married an English woman, Valerie Fleming, and received British citizenship, but the couple divorced years later.
He suffered injuries to his hands and eye in Afghanistan, where he travelled to fight a jihad against Soviet occupation. On his return to the UK, Hamza started preaching radical anti-Western sermons at Finsbury Park Mosque in north London.
Over the last eight years he has fought extradition to the U.S. to face numerous terror-related charges.
Here is a timeline of key events in his case
2001:
September - Following the 9/11 attacks, Hamza’s comments in support of Osama bin Laden spark outrage.
2002:
April - Hamza is formally suspended by the Charity Commission from his position at Finsbury Park Mosque over his inflammatory speeches.
September 11 - Hamza speaks at a controversial conference at the mosque titled A Towering Day In History.
2003:
January - Armed police arrest seven people at the mosque in a dawn raid. A stun gun, replica firearms and CS gas canisters are among the items seized.
February - Hamza again causes outrage when he describes the ill-fated Columbia space shuttle, which contained Christians, Hindus and a Jew, as a 'trinity of evil' and says its destruction was a punishment from Allah.
April - Home Secretary David Blunkett announces new laws allowing British citizenship to be removed from immigrants who 'seriously prejudice' the UK’s interests. Legal moves begin to get Hamza deported to Yemen. Two weeks later, his lawyers announce he will appeal against the move.
2004:
May - Hamza is arrested on a US extradition warrant. The US wants him on charges of conspiring to take Western hostages in Yemen, funding terrorism, and organising a terrorist training camp in Oregon between 1998 and 2000.
October - He is charged with 15 offences under the Terrorism Act, including incitement to murder and possession of a terrorism document, temporarily staying the US extradition process.
2006:
February 7 - Hamza is jailed for seven years after being found guilty on 11 of 15 charges.
July - He is given the go-ahead to challenge the convictions for incitement to murder and race hate offences.
November - The Court of Appeal dismisses his appeal against the conviction.
2007:
May - A preliminary extradition hearing takes place in London.
July - Hamza speaks by video-link in a hearing to fight the extradition.
November - A judge at City of Westminster Magistrates’ Court rules that Hamza has lost his legal arguments against extradition. Senior District Judge Timothy Workman sends the matter to the Home Secretary to make a final decision.
2008:
February 7 - Home Secretary Jacqui Smith signs an extradition order, meaning Hamza will be handed over to US authorities within 28 days if he does not appeal.
June 20 - Two High Court judges rule that the extradition decision is 'unassailable'.
July 23 - Hamza is refused permission to appeal to the House of Lords as senior judge Sir Igor Judge refuses to certify that his case raises a point of law of such public importance to go before the highest court in the land.
August 4 - The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) in Strasbourg rules that Hamza should not be extradited until judges can examine his case. The Home Office says it will abide by the court’s request.
2010:
January 18 - Hamza launches another legal fight to hang on to his British passport.
February 9 - Legal aid bosses seize Hamza’s house in Greenford, west London, to pay off his legal bills, despite the radical preacher claiming it does not belong to him. Officials hope to raise £280,000 from the sale.
November 5 - Hamza wins his appeal against the Government’s attempts to strip him of his British passport. The move would have rendered him 'stateless' as he has already been stripped of his Egyptian citizenship, the Special Immigration Appeals Commission rules.
2012:
April 10 - Europe’s human rights judges rule that Hamza, along with four other terror suspects, would not be subject to 'ill-treatment' in America and their extradition is lawful.
July 9 - Hamza lodges an appeal with the ECHR over his extradition to the US - on the eve of the July 10 deadline.
September 24 - Hamza’s request for an appeal is rejected as Europe’s human rights judges rule he can be extradited to America.
September 25 - BBC journalist Frank Gardner apologises for a 'breach of confidence' after telling the Radio 4 Today programme that the Queen had voiced concerns about the UK’s inability to arrest Hamza.
September 26 - Hamza launches a last-minute High Court challenge in a move to avoid extradition.
September 27 - The Lord Chief Justice, Lord Judge, says extensive delays in cases such as the extradition of radical cleric Abu Hamza are a 'source of real fury'.
October 3 - Hamza’s legal team claim his health is 'deteriorating' and he is suffering from long-term depression, inability to concentrate and short-term memory loss.
But Sir John Thomas, president of the Queen’s Bench Division, suggests that if there is a risk of a degenerative condition, 'the sooner he is put on trial the better.
But Sir John Thomas, president of the Queen’s Bench Division, suggests that if there is a risk of a degenerative condition, 'the sooner he is put on trial the better.
October 5 - The High Court rules that Hamza can be extradited to the US, clearing the way for his immediate departure.
RAW VIDEO: Hamza makes his UK Departure
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