Hate preacher Hamza ‘misses cushy UK jail’
New legal fight to get him out of US
HATE preacher Abu Hamza can’t stand life in a tough US jail and is begging to be sent back to Britain.
The hook-handed cleric, who is blind in one eye, is serving life for 11 terror offences, in a “Supermax” prison.
He says he is in solitary, starved of human contact and gets no extra help.
His lawyers say he would be willing to return to a British jail “in a second”.
Hamza, 59, now has one hour a day of recreation time at the ADX Florence prison, in Colorado, but it takes place in an outdoor “cage” no bigger than his cell.
Court documents show he was allowed to mix with other inmates while at HMP Belmarsh, in London, as he fought extradition from 2006 to 2012.
A medic visited up to five times a week and a carer tended to him daily.
Michael Bachrach, one of the preacher’s appeal lawyers, said: “We strongly believe conditions of his confinement violate expectations of the European Convention on Human Rights and the promises that were made by the US government to the [British and Euro- pean] courts as part of the extradition. He would go back to Belmarsh in a second if he could.”
Mr Bachrach, a terrorism specialist who last saw Hamza in September, said the cleric was “hopeful” about his appeal. The action is being financed out of US public funds and follows an eightyear battle to get him extradited.
The preacher has already cost British taxpayers almost £1million in legal fees.
The fanatical Egyptian was the imam of Finsbury Park Mosque where he gave hate-filled sermons against the West.
He was jailed in 2006 after being found guilty in the UK of 16 offences for inciting violence and racial hatred.
Hamza was extradited to New York in 2014. His terror offences included setting up a training camp in Oregon.
A judge locked him up for life, without the possibility of parole.
At the time, then-Home Secretary Theresa May said she was “pleased that Abu Hamza has finally faced justice”.
She added: “I am pleased he will spend the rest of his life behind bars.”