Haggard, hookless... Hamza in toughest jail in US
LOOKING haggard and whitehaired, this is hate preacher Abu Hamza after two years in solitary confinement in America’s most secure jail.
The 59-year-old – pictured without his infamous hooks – has lost a significant amount of weight and aged considerably.
The photograph appears to have been taken at ADX Florence ‘ supermax’ prison in Colorado, where the Egyptian-born father- ofeight is serving a life sentence for terror offences.
It was released alongside a selfpenned appeal where Hamza begs to return to a prison in the UK. It follows a separate appeal filed by his lawyers in the us.
Hamza claims he is being treated inhumanely by being starved of human contact and medical care and complains about a skin condition on his stumps as well as the state of his cell.
He was extradited to the us in 2012 following an eight-year legal battle that cost British taxpayers almost £1million. He now wants to return to Belmarsh in south- east London where – during his extradition battle – he was allowed to mix with other inmates and had daily medical support. It is understood the picture was submitted as part of a 128page appeal he wrote himself in an attempt to win sympathy from the judge.
According to court papers filed by his lawyers, Hamza has been in solitary confinement since october 2015 and is allowed only ‘one hour per day of recreation time’.
The former cleric of the Finsbury Park mosque in North London, who is blind in one eye, claims his treatment is a breach of article 3 of the Human rights Act, which prohibits torture and inhuman or degrading treatment.
ADX Florence is known as the ‘Alcatraz of the rockies’ and houses the most dangerous inmates in the us, including Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev.
Inmates are confined to tiny cells measuring 7ft by 12ft. In Belmarsh – where fellow fundamentalists Anjem Choudary and Lee rigby killers Michael Adebolajo and Michael Adebowale have served time – Hamza was vis- ited by a nurse or doctor up to five times a week.
Legal papers, filed under Hamza’s real name, Mostafa Kamel Mostafa, and separate to his own appeal, state: ‘Mostafa is permitted to one hour per day of recreation time outside of his cell.
‘Even during that one-hour recreation, however, Mostafa is still confined within a cell-sized cage and is in that cage alone.’
The submission says his cell is not suitable for a doubleamputee who suffers from diabetes and psoriasis, and has a neurological condition that produces excessive sweating, forcing him to take at least two showers a day.
It adds: ‘The stumps in both arms are subject to regular outbreaks of infection.’
He was moved to the jail from the relative comfort of Medical Centre for Federal Prisoners, in Missouri, in 2015.
In 2006 he was jailed in Britain for soliciting murder and inciting racial hatred.
MAC IS AWAY
‘Outbreaks of infection’