Imam gets life in jail over terror charges

Radical gained notoriety for incendiary speeches at mosque

Radical imam Abu Hamza al-Masri was sentenced to life in prison, eight months after he was convicted of federal terrorism charges in New York.

The one-eyed, handless Abu Hamza was found guilty of providing a satellite phone and advice to Yemeni militants who kidnapped Western tourists in 1998. He was also convicted of sending two followers to Oregon to establish a militant training camp, and dispatching an associate to Afghanistan to aid al-Qaeda and the Taliban against the US.

Abu Hamza, 56, gained notoriety in London for his incendiary speeches at the Finsbury Park Mosque and his use of a hook in place of his missing right hand.

It took successive British governments nearly a decade to remove the Egyptian-born Hamza from the UK following a lengthy and costly legal battle. He was sentenced before district judge Katherine Forrest at the Daniel Patrick Moynihan courthouse in Manhattan.

During his trial in May last year, jurors heard a tape in which Hamza said: ”Everybody was happy when the planes hit the World Trade Center.”

Hamza’s lawyers argued he should be sent to a prison medical centre because he is too disabled to spend life behind bars.

Hamza led the Finsbury Park Mosque in the 1990s, reportedly attended by both September 11 conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui and shoe bomber Richard Reid, though the cleric denied ever having met them. He later spread violent messages there following the attacks of September 11 2001.

Hamza was jailed in the UK for seven years for soliciting murder and inciting racial hatred in 2006 and first faced an extradition request from the Americans in 2004.

While acknowledging Hamza had been convicted of participating in “terrible crimes”, defence lawyers said his failure to successfully challenge extradition to the US while incarcerated in England from 2004 to 2012 was “directly attributable” to sworn statements, concessions and promises made by the US government during extradition proceedings.

But prosecutors responded in court papers that the government never promised the UK that Hamza would not be assigned to the prison. They also insisted life in prison was the only appropriate sentence, saying Hamza “waged a global war of jihad against those that he considered infidels. He sent men to American soil to learn how to fight and kill in support of that war”.