Abu Qatada To Finally Be Deported To Jordan, The radical cleric spends his final day on British soil before he is taken from Belmarsh prison and flown to Jordan to face trial.
Abu Qatada will be moved to RAF Northolt in west London and deported to Jordan in the early hours of Sunday morning.
It marks the end of a near decade-long legal battle to remove the preacher, who the Government has described as a "truly dangerous individual" and a "key player" in al Qaeda-related terrorism.
Sky News understands the 51-year-old will be driven from Belmarsh prison in southeast London to RAF Northolt around midnight tonight.
A military aircraft will be waiting to take off around 2am on Sunday, heading for an isolated airstrip near the Jordanian capital Amman.
The cleric will be transferred to the maximum security Muwaqqar prison, which houses dozens of convicted terrorists.
It is understood that Qatada will be held in solitary confinement at the jail, until the Jordanian authorities can put him on trial.
Qatada originally fled the Middle East and arrived in the UK in 1993. He was granted asylum the following year.
His increasingly radical sermons caught the attention of the security services in Britain and in numerous other countries.
A Spanish judge described him as the "spiritual head of the mujaheddin in Britain".
A number of people arrested on terrorism offences, including British born "shoe-bomber" Richard Reid, admitted seeking religious advice from him.
His sermons were found in the Hamburg flat used by a number of the 9/11 hijackers.
In 2001, on the eve of tough new British anti-terror laws allowing for the detention without trial of foreign terror suspects, Qatada went on the run, before later being arrested and held in Belmarsh prison.
He has spent most of the last decade in detention, the last eight years while contesting efforts to deport him.
On two occasions he was granted bail, but later detained for breaching his strict bail conditions.
This weekend marks the end of a national embarrassment, which critics of European human rights legislation claim has rendered UK politicians powerless to remove someone who they believed to be a clear threat to national security.
It was revealed recently that the cost of years of legal fees from the many court proceedings stood at £1.7m - a bill which will be footed by UK taxpayers.
For Home Secretary Theresa May, there is no doubt the deportation of Qatada is a significant political victory.
But having had their fingers burnt on numerous occasions in the past, no one at the Home Office will be celebrating until the radical cleric is on that plane and out of UK airspace.
Saturday, July 6, 2013
Abu Qatada To Finally Be Deported To Jordan
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