Abu Qatada released: UK ‘could ignore ECHR ruling and deport hate preacher to Jordan’

  • Just ignore Strasbourg ruling and kick him out, David Mellor tells Home Secretary
  • Home Office minister ‘flies out to Jordan’ in bid to secure deal to deport extremist
  • Qatada freed from high-security prison under the cover of darkness as his mother says he should be returned to Jordan
  • Baroness Pauline Neville-Jones warns he ‘wished death upon others… we must regard him as a threat’
  • Hate preacher’s best friend says: ‘He spoke to Bin Laden many, many times by phone’
  • Taxpayer forced to pay £10k per week to protect Qatada from vigilantes

By
Tom Kelly, James Slack and James White

Last updated at 3:21 PM on 14th February 2012

Abu Qatada could be deported to Jordan if the Government chose to reject a European Court ruling, a former Home Office minister said today.

David Mellor said Home Secretary Theresa May should simply ignore the ruling in Strasbourg that prevents Britain throwing out the hate preacher because he could stand trial for terrorism offences involving evidence gathered through torture.

Speaking after Qatada was released from prison, he said: ‘The ruling in Strasbourg is a gnat-bite that the British Government is totally free in law to ignore.

‘There is clearance up to the level of the Supreme Court here to deport
him to Jordan, which is a friendly state with a civilised government.

Freed on bail: Hate preacher Abu Qatada is released from Long Lartin Prison under the cover of darkness. It will cost £10,000 per week to keep him safe

Freed on bail: Hate preacher Abu Qatada is released from Long Lartin Prison under the cover of darkness. It will cost £10,000 per week to keep him safe

‘If the Home Secretary chose, as she should, to put him on a plane this
morning and send him back, she would have broken no laws.

He blamed ‘paralysis’ within the coalition for Mrs May’s failure to act.

He said: ‘A combination of (Justice Secretary) Ken Clarke and the Liberal
Democrats makes this a political fight she feels she cannot win so she
is funking it.’

His comments came as another former
Conservative minister added her voice to fears about the threat posed by
Qatada, who was released from prison last night.

Former
security minister Baroness Pauline Neville-Jones said of the Islamist
extremist: ‘He’s unlikely to be much of a risk at the moment under that
degree of surveillance, but what we know is that’s not going to be a
permanent situation if an agreement can’t be somehow found within three
months with the Jordanian government, so there’s a long-term risk there.

‘This
is a man who… has a record of preaching real violence. Here’s a man
who wished death upon others and I’m less convinced that he’s somehow
been neutralised, so we must regard him as a threat.’

Her comments came as Qatada’s own mother called for him to be kicked out of Britain.

Today Home Office minister James
Brokenshire was reported to have boarded a flight to Jordan in a bid to
broker a deal with Qatada’s home government to create the right conditions in which Britain could legally deport him.

Call for action: Former Conservative Home Office minister David Mellor, left, said Britain could ignore a European Court ruling and deport Qatada, while Baroness Pauline Neville-Jones said Abu Qatada presented a long-term risk to the country

Neville-Joens

Call for action: Former Conservative Home Office minister David Mellor, left, said Britain could ignore a European Court ruling and deport Qatada, while Baroness Pauline Neville-Jones said Abu Qatada presented a long-term risk to the country

As the Islamic extremist was released from jail, Aisha Othman, 70, speaking from her home in the capital, Amman, insisted: ‘Britain is very wrong to keep my son.’

She
said Qatada, once Osama Bin Laden’s spiritual ambassador in Europe,
would be better off to return home to face trial in Jordan.

She said: ‘He has been
away too long. We want him home now. I don’t know why the British keep him. There is no good reason. I can’t see why they would want him.’

Qatada was freed from high-security prison under cover of darkness last night. As well as a 22-hour curfew, he is banned from contacting a list of terrorists including Al Qaeda chief Ayman Al Zawahiri and hook-handed hate preacher Abu Hamza.

Ministers are desperate to deport him and are pinning their hopes on a promise by Jordan to ban the use in terror trials of evidence obtained by torture.

The prospect of Qatada, who is also known as Omar Othman, being prosecuted using evidence obtained by ill-treatment led to the European Court of Human Rights ruling he must not be deported.

In turn, Strasbourg’s judgment led directly to the UK courts releasing him on bail yesterday. He is wanted in Jordan in connection with plotting a terrorist atrocity to mark the millennium.

In an exclusive interview, Mrs Othman insisted her son was not a terrorist. But his brother and a close friend revealed how he was in regular phone contact with Osama Bin Laden until 2001 and thought the late Al Qaeda leader was a ‘wise man’.

Rundown: The family home in Jordan

Bring him back: Qatada's mother Aisha Othman said her son should be allowed to return to Jordan

Bring him back: Qatada’s mother Aisha Othman, right, said her son should be allowed to return to Jordan. The ramshackle family home in Jordan, left

Hate preacher: Qatada pictured walking the streets of West London before he went to prison

Hate preacher: Qatada pictured walking the streets of West London before he went to prison

They said Qatada supported jihadist groups in Algeria and Libya but denied he had any involvement in terror attacks in Jordan.

His younger brother, Ibrahim Abu Omar Othman, 32, said he wanted Qatada to return to Jordan.

‘I
wish very much to have him back, of course, but I am worried he will be
tortured if he returns if there is not a special agreement to say he
cannot be harmed and that he will have fair treatment by the
authorities,’ he added.

‘I am very uncertain about whether that is possible.’

He last spoke to Qatada two months ago when the preacher telephoned the family home from prison.

‘We are concerned about him, but he is a strong man who did not complain to us about prison life.

‘He will be much happier to be out though, I am certain about that.’

Qatada’s best friend from school, Hassan Abu Hanyiah, said: ‘He spoke to Bin Laden many, many times by phone, although they never met in person because they were never in the same country together.

EVEN THE GUARDIAN JOINS CALLS FOR HATE CLERIC TO BE DEPORTED

Left-wing newspaper The Guardian today added its voice to the overwhelming calls for Abu Qatada to be deported from Britain.

Despite its traditional pro-mass immigration stance, the newspaper acknowledged that ‘there is not a soul in this country who thinks that Britain is a better place for the presence of Abu Qatada.’

In a leader article, it said: ‘The case for deportation from this country is immensely strong.’

It went on: ‘Deportation of Abu Qatada would clearly be the better course… Britain would like to deport Abu Qatada to Jordan. Ideally this should happen.’

However, The Guardian also celebrates the fact Qatada was released from prison because he has never been charged with a criminal offence in this country, calling his detention an abuse of the ‘rule of law’.

‘Before September 11, speaking to Bin Laden was not a big deal.

‘He admired Bin Laden as a wise man who knew many things. He liked and respected him a lot.’

While fighting deportation, Qatada, 51, has been held for six-and-a-half years, more than any other detainee in modern immigration history.

As ministers continued to work frantically to strike an extradition deal with Jordan, Downing Street left open the door to defying Strasbourg and simply putting Qatada on a plane. Such a move – while hugely popular with the British public and Tory MPs – would bring the Government into open conflict with Europe.

But, asked whether Britain could ignore the ruling, the Prime Minister’s spokesman said: ‘We are committed to removing him from the country. We want to see him deported. We are looking at all the options for doing that.’

The comments from Number Ten came as Tory MPs continued to heap pressure on the Prime Minister to remove Qatada. They point out other countries, including Italy and France, have kicked out terror suspects in clear defiance of the court’s rulings.

Tory MP Dominic Raab said: ‘The
lawyers have haggled and quibbled long enough. Qatada is a threat to
public protection and should be put on a flight back to Jordan. No ifs,
no buts.’

And Tory MP Robert
Halfon accused Strasbourg of subverting the original founding principles
of the European Convention on Human Rights.

The
taxpayer will have to find up to £10,000 a week to help protect Qatada
from vigilante attacks now that he has been released. Police
surveillance will require 60 officers a day divided over three shifts to
keep a 24-hour watch on him.

James Brokenshire, the security
minister, is due to fly to Jordan to gain necessary assurances that will
allow the UK to deport Qatada.

The case has become so sensitive that officials will not say publicly when the talks will take place.

Lord Carlile, the government’s former reviewer of terror laws, said: ‘This should all have been sorted out long ago.

Freed: Radical Muslim cleric Abu Qatada was being held at Long Lartin, in Worcestershire, until he was released last night

Freed: Radical Muslim cleric Abu Qatada was being held at Long Lartin, in Worcestershire, until he was released last night

Held: Once described by a judge as Osama Bin Laden's right-hand man in Europe, Qatada, 51, was in a van which left the high-security Long Lartin prison in Evesham, Worcestershire, (pictured) for his London home at about 9.15pm

Held: Once described by a judge as Osama Bin Laden’s right-hand man in Europe, Qatada, 51, was in a van which left the high-security Long Lartin prison in Evesham, Worcestershire, (pictured) for his London home at about 9.15pm

‘The incredulity of the public and the media is entirely justified. We have to find a way of making him leave.

‘There are legal rule of law ways of achieving that, it’s a pity it wasn’t done before.’

Yvette Cooper, the shadow Home Secretary, said: ‘As soon as the European Court judgement was delivered a month ago now the Government could have appealed the decision and begun urgent negotiations with the Jordanian government. Instead the Government did nothing.’

Tough terms of his freedom

Here’s what other readers have said. Why not add your thoughts,
or debate this issue live on our message boards.

The comments below have not been moderated.

Can’t we have our SAS doing some special training – like sticking him in Jordan without any one knowing??

For goodness sake, you have the whole country behind you! Get on with it! And re-examine the credentials to live in the UK of the other firebrands who hate us, but take our money by the barrel load!

I am sure an RAF Hercules could over-fly Jordanian airspace on the way to Afghanistan or similar with him in the cargo hold strapped to a pallet with a parachute attached and the rear door opened and kicked out of the aircraft.
– Mark, Manchester, in the once Great Britain, 14/2/2012 17:03
Your to generous Mark-why the parachute?

Just ignore strasbourg. They won’t be sending over jackbooted EUSSR stormtroopers anytime soon.

Was Menwith Hill fast asleep when he was phoning up Bin Laden from here?

Put him on a plane and when flying over Jordan push him out the emergency exit. I’ll do it!

When we finally get rid of him, can the Government of the day please ensure that the rest of his family go with him………………..just to ensure his right to a family life.

It seems to me that once again our government is being constrained by the Europhile Lib Dems. There have been far too many stupid decisions and policies made purely to keep the coalition in tact. Time to go back to the country with very clear and perhaps even legally binding manifestos from each party. First on list needs to be the promised referendum on Europe David.

Throw this parasite and his family leeches out of this country.

How can the government deny him a family life. His poor mother wants him and I think there could be a cat as well. You let them stay here for things like that, so don’t be two faced send him and his baggage of a wife plus kids back.

The views expressed in the contents above are those of our users and do not necessarily reflect the views of MailOnline.

You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

Leave a Reply

Powered by WordPress | Designed by: Premium WordPress Themes | Thanks to Themes Gallery, Bromoney and Wordpress Themes