Abu Hamza launches last-ditch legal challenge

Radical cleric Abu Hamza has launched a last-minute High Court bid to avoid extradition to the United States (PA)

Just 24 hours after it was announced that the radical cleric Abu Hamza was to be deported from the UK, his lawyers launched an eleventh-hour legal attempt to save him from extradition.

Today, a judge issued interim injunctions preventing Hamza’s removal – along with the fellow terror suspect Khalid al-Fawwaz – pending an “urgent” hearing of their application before the High Court.

It was unclear on what grounds the two men were attempting to block their extradition, but a spokeswoman for the Judicial Office confirmed that both men were “seeking injunctions preventing their removal from the UK”.

“The applications will be heard by the Divisional Court on 2 October before Sir John Thomas, president of the Queen’s Bench Division, and Mr Justice Ouseley,” she added.

The new legal action comes after judges at the European Court of Human Rights appeared to end Hamza’s eight-year battle by dismissing his request to appeal.

The court ruled on 10 April that “detention conditions and length of sentences of five alleged terrorists would not amount to ill-treatment if they were extradited to the USA”.

On Tuesday the panel of five judges threw out Hamza’s request – along with that of fellow suspects Fawwaz, Babar Ahmad, Seyla Talha Ahsan and Adel Abdul Bary – to appeal the decision to its Grand Chamber.

Hamza, who was jailed for seven years for soliciting to murder and inciting racial hatred, has been fighting extradition since 2004.