Radical Loses Citizenship

Britain has revoked the citizenship of a radical Muslim cleric who applauded the Sept. 11 attacks and was banned from preaching at a London mosque, Home Secretary David Blunkett said Saturday.

Blunkett said he had informed Abu Hamza al Masri that his citizenship was being stripped. He is the first person targeted under new measures aimed at deporting immigrants whose words or actions are deemed to “seriously prejudice” British interests.

“I have sent him a letter withdrawing his citizenship,” Blunkett told BBC radio. Masri now faces deportation.

Egyptian-born Masri as been vilified for applauding the Sept. 11 attacks on New York and the Pentagon and the deaths of Americans and an Israeli in the crash of the space shuttle Columbia. Masri, who lost an eye and both forearms while fighting Soviet forces in Afghanistan, has called Osama bin Laden a hero. He denies having any links to Bin Laden’s Al Qaeda network.

Yemen renewed a request to Britain on Saturday to hand over Masri, whom it accuses of links to Muslim militants and involvement in a 1998 kidnapping there of Western tourists, four of whom were killed in a rescue attempt.

Masri was banned from preaching at the North London Central Mosque after police raided it in January in an investigation into a discovery of the poison ricin. The mosque has since been closed but Masri has continued to preach in the street outside.

Masri’s lawyer, Muddassar Arani, said the cleric had not received the Blunkett letter and would resist on the grounds that removal of nationality breached EU protocols on human rights.

Blunkett’s action follows the introduction of new powers on April 1 allowing the government to strip immigrants holding dual nationality of British citizenship if they “seriously prejudice” the country’s vital interests through word or deed.

But Arani said the action would leave Masri stateless because he had surrendered his Egyptian nationality “years ago.”

Blunkett would not speculate on how many others the government might target under the new laws but said no one would be sent back to a country if they might face the death penalty.

The new measures are part of a wider plan aimed at chopping by 50% the number of asylum seekers arriving in Britain -- more than 100,000 came last year -- and stopping what the government says is an abuse of its generous benefits system.