British Government Demanding the Deportation of Radical Cleric

The government Monday demanded the expulsion of a radical Muslim cleric, Abu Hamza al Masri, a naturalized Briton who is accused of inspiring hatred against the West and giving moral support to terrorists through his inflammatory preaching at a north London mosque.

Abu Hamza is the prayer leader at the Finsbury Park mosque where Al Qaeda operatives, including “shoe bomber” Richard Reid and Zacarias Moussaoui, studied and worshipped.

Under Abu Hamza’s influence, the mosque has become a “center of extremism and a safe haven for Islamic extremists,” a government attorney argued before the Special Immigration Appeals Commission.

Although the mosque has been closed by police order, Abu Hamza, 44, continues to preach on a sidewalk outside it each Friday.

Abu Hamza is appealing a decision by Home Secretary David Blunkett that he be stripped of his British nationality and deported to Yemen.

The hearing occurs during a groundswell of concern here about radical Islamic teachings luring young Muslim Britons into terrorist actions.

Within the last month, counter-terrorist police have staged mass raids intended to break up terrorist plots on British soil. In the first raid, in London and elsewhere in southeastern England, police recovered half a ton of fertilizer that authorities said was intended to be used to manufacture explosives. After the second raid, centered on the northern city of Manchester, published reports said the alleged plotters were targeting a shopping mall.

Abu Hamza’s mosque was raided in January 2003, and authorities confiscated chemical warfare suits.

Abu Hamza says he lost his hands and an eye fighting the Russians in Afghanistan. He gained British nationality in 1981 after he married a British woman, whom he has since divorced.

At Monday’s hearing, Ian Burnett, the lawyer for the Home Office, said there were at least four grounds for depriving Abu Hamza of his citizenship: that he had provided “support and advice to terrorist groups,” including Al Qaeda and Egyptian Islamic Jihad; had “encouraged and supported” young men traveling abroad to take part in “jihad fighting” and “terrorist acts;” had used the mosque as a place to allow extremists to develop contacts; and had “promoted anti-Western sentiment and violence” through his teachings.

The appeal has been going on for nearly a year, and Burnett accused Abu Hamza of not producing even “a line of evidence” in his defense.

But the judge hearing the appeal indicated that the case could go on until next January due to an ongoing disagreement over whether Abu Hamza would be given state financial assistance to prepare his defense.