RADICAL FUNDAMENTALIST CLERIC Abu Hamza can be extradited to the United States to face terrorism charges, a European court has ruled.
The north London-based Muslim cleric has been in prison in Britain pending extradition which he fought on the grounds that he would face ill-treatment and inhumane conditions in the US.
The US has charged Abu Hamza with conspiring to establish a jihad training camp in Oregon between June 2000 and December 2001 and advocating violent jihad in Afghanistan in 2001. He is also alleged to have been involved in the kidnapping of 16 western tourists in Yemen in 1998.
He was sentenced to seven years in prison in 2006 for inciting hatred in Britain. Hamza had been in charge of the Finsbury Park mosque in north London, which had been a hotbed for advocating violent jihad.
The European Court of Human Rights this morning said that the detention conditions and length of sentences faced by Hamza and five other alleged terrorists would not amount to a breach of their human rights if they were extradited to the US.
The court said that Hamza would not face the death penalty or torture:
The Court found that, given assurance provided by the United States, there was no real risk that these four applicants, if extradited to teh USA, would either be designated as enemy combatants (with the consequences that that entailed, such as the death penalty) or subjected to extraordinary rendition.
The ECHR’s ruling, which was unanimous, noted that Hamza faces a life sentence if found guilty of the charges in the US.
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