'Hamza could still face US death penalty' - court told
Radical Muslim cleric Abu Hamza could still face execution in the US where he is wanted on terrorism charges, his lawyers said today.
Britain cannot send any suspect for trial to a country where they might be sentenced to death and an assurance had been given by the US Government that Hamza would only face a jail sentence.
But a recent US Supreme Court decision means that assurance does not bind state courts, Hamza’s counsel, Edward Fitzgerald QC, said.
If a state court found grounds to prosecute Hamza following his extradition then he could still be put to death.
Mr Fitzgerald told Belmarsh Magistrates’ Court: “If there is any evidence that the state courts could try then that would be something we submit would be a bar to extradition.”
He also argued that Hamza could not receive a fair trial in the US where a New York grand jury has drawn up 11 charges alleging involvement in hostage taking in Yemen, establishing a terror training camp in Bly, Oregon and sending a follower to fight for the Taliban in Afghanistan.
Mr Fitzgerald said evidence from a key witness against Hamza was tainted because he had “done a deal” with US prosecutors allowing him to walk free three years into a 25-year prison sentence for conspiring to help the Taliban.
The witness was referred to in court as CC1 but is understood to be James Ujaama, 37, who is alleged to have been involved in setting up the Oregon camp.
Ujaama attended Finsbury Park mosque, where Hamza was imam, in the late 1990s and ran the Egyptian-born cleric’s Supporters of Sharia website.
The court heard that after becoming ill in Afghanistan Ujaama called Hamza and shortly afterwards was visited by Ayman al-Zawahiri, the leader of Egyptian Islamic Jihad and believed to be Osama bin Laden’s right hand man, who told him to take honey and black seeds.
Ujaama also took another of Hamza’s followers, referred to in court as CC2, to fight in Afghanistan allegedly at the cleric’s request.
CC2 is understood to be Feroz Abbasi, 24, from Croydon, south London, who was subsequently detained in Afghanistan and is now being held at the US naval base detention centre in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
The court heard that Abbasi allegedly trained at two al Qaida camps in Afghanistan, where he was addressed by Bin Laden and is said to have expressed his willingness to carry out suicide missions.
Abbasi is also said to have met shoe bomber Richard Reid who he came to idolise as a model terrorist.
Mr Fitzgerald said that any evidence US authorities had got from CC2 would lead to a breach of Hamza’s right to a fair trial under Article 6 of the Human Rights Act because it may have been obtained through torture.
“It would be a breach of Article 6 to try someone on the basis of evidence obtained by torture,” he told the court.
“The same would apply to returning someone to a foreign country for trial on the basis of evidence obtained through torture or inhuman, or degrading, treatment.”
US prosecutors claim Hamza was part of a worldwide conspiracy to wage war on the West
James Lewis QC, for the US Government, said: “Abu Hamza is a member of a global conspiracy to wage Jihad against the United States and other countries.
“He has consistently advocated hatred and violence against the United States of America, which he called the United Snakes of America.”
Hamza, who lost his hands in Egypt in the 1990s, wore a pale blue smock and his prosthetic hook had been removed for security reasons.
He was surrounded in the dock by four prison officers, a security guard and a welfare officer and spoke only to confirm his name, Mustafa Kamel Mustafa, and four aliases, one of which is Abu Hamza.
For much of the proceedings his one good eye was closed, and his head lolled forward.
His lawyers told the court he was unwell and he left the dock before the end of proceedings. His illness was understood to be “not serious”.
A full hearing of the US case for extraditing Hamza will not begin until October 19, some five months after his arrest.
