Muslim cleric Abu Qatada held over bail breach
ITN – Qatada held after ‘attempts to flee UK’
Qatada held after ‘attempts to flee UK’
Radical cleric Abu Qatada is being held by police after allegedly trying to flee the country.
The 47-year-old will appear before an immigration hearing on Tuesday for allegedly breaching his bail conditions and could return to prison permanently.
UK Border Agency officials allegedly discovered the Jordanian was planning to escape to the Middle East – despite having his passport taken away.
They convened a hearing on Friday and a judge ruled bail should be cancelled. Qatada was arrested the following day.
Qatada, who was once described by a judge as “Osama bin Laden’s right-hand man in Europe”, was released in June after the courts ruled it would breach his human rights if he was deported back to Jordan.
Ministers are appealing the decision but the Special Immigration Appeals Commission (SIAC) ruled Qatada could be released on bail in the meantime.
He is required to wear an electronic tag, stay for 22 hours a day in his west London home, and barred from using the internet or mobile phones.
His bail also bans him from associating with known terrorists including bin Laden.
SIAC first ruled Qatada could be deported because Britain had signed a “memorandum of understanding” with Amman guaranteeing he would not be tortured, but the Court of Appeal overturned the ruling.
Qatada was first arrested in 2001 by anti-terrorism police. He was carrying £170,000 in cash, including £805 in an envelope marked “For the mujahedin in Chechnya”.
He has been convicted of terrorism offences in Jordan in his absence.
Abu Qatada arrested again: Islamic group – Yahoo!7 News
There was no confirmation from British authorities about the reported arrest, which comes almost five months after the Palestinian -born cleric was freed on bail by a British court.
“We cannot comment at all. He is covered by an anonymity order,” Britain’s Home Office (interior ministry) said.
Abu Qatada, who has been convicted on terrorism charges in Jordan, first arrived in Britain in the early 1990s but disappeared before new anti- terrorism laws were introduced after the September 11, 2001 attacks in the United States.
Born Omar Mahmud Mohammed Otman in the West Bank town of Bethlehem, Abu Qatada arrived in Britain in 1993 on a forged United Arab Emirates passport and claimed asylum, gaining refugee status in 1994.
He was arrested in October 2002 and spent three years in a high-security prison in London.
At the end of the prison term he was released, although made subject to a control order – a loose form of house arrest – but returned to jail in August 2005 as part of a crackdown against Islamist extremism after the London bombings of July 7, 2005.
