Abu Qatada deported from UK for trial in Jordan

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ABU QATADA. A handout picture from the British Home Office shows radical Islamist cleric Abu Qatada stepping out of a police van before boarding a privately chartered jet at the RAF Northolt base in west London, early on July 7, 2013, as he gets deported to Jordan. AFP PHOTO/ HO / SGT RALPH MERRY ABIPP RAF / MOD CROWN

Radical cleric Abu Qatada is being held in a high security jail near the Jordanian capital Amman, after being deported from the UK. A BBC report says Prime Minister David Cameron is “delighted” at his removal. Abu Qatada was first arrested in the UK over terrorist connections in 2001 and has fought deportation since 2005. The cleric’s deportation was finally able to proceed after the UK and Jordan signed a treaty agreeing that evidence obtained through torture would not be used against him. Abu Qatada, whose real name is Omar Othman, was granted asylum in the UK in 1994 but was later seen by authorities as a threat. Military prosecutors charged Abu Qatada with conspiracy to carry out a plot to bomb American and Israeli tourists during Jordan’s millennium celebrations. His associates include Richard Reid, the would-be mid-Atlantic shoe bomber, and Zacarias Moussaoui, another terrorist. In deporting Abu Qatada, Home Secretary Theresa May says she has succeeded where many other home secretaries failed. The government intends to change the law to ensure fewer deportation appeals.

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