Life sentence for hate cleric Hamza
ABU Hamza was last night handed a life sentence by a New York judge who branded him ‘evil’.
The hate cleric nodded his head as Judge Katherine Forrest told him he was ‘barbaric’ and had shown no remorse or sympathy to his victims.
She said a life sentence was the only option because she could never conceive of a time when he would not be a danger to the public – even 20 years from now.
She said: ‘The sheer point of your crimes is the killing of others and the destruction of a way of life, our way of life. This is unacceptable in a civilised society.
It has emerged that one of the suspects in the Paris massacre was a devotee of a former Hamza disciple at the Finsbury Park Mosque in North London, where he was Imam.
The judge at Manhattan’s Federal Court said she never wanted the hate cleric to be released. His other convictions related to facilitating jihad in Afghanistan and trying to set up a terrorist training camp in Bly, Oregon.
It has not yet been decided where Hamza will be jailed.
During the hearing Hamza claimed his human rights had been breached’. He said his sentence was a ‘back door for a slow motion crucifixion’ and claimed he had been subject to ‘torture’ in custody.
His lawyer Sam Schmidt also submitted a picture of the spork used by Hamza in jail to show how poorly he was being treated.
After the hearing, Mr Schmidt said Hamza would appeal.