London deports Muslim cleric to face trial in Jordan

A radical Muslim cleric once called "Osama bin Laden's right-hand man in Europe" was deported from Britain to Jordan on Sunday, ending years of British government efforts to send him back home to face terrorism charges.

A police convoy collected Abu Qatada from London's Belmarsh prison after midnight and drove him through the streets of the capital to a military airport. Soon after arriving in Jordan, he was taken under heavy guard to a nearby military court.

The legal battle to deport Abu Qatada, whose real name is Omar Mahmoud Othman, has embarrassed successive British governments. Prime Minister David Cameron said he was "absolutely delighted" it was over.

Cameron hailed the final removal of Abu Qatada from Britain after a legal battle that cost the taxpayer $2.7 million.

"I was absolutely delighted. This is something this government said it would get done, and we have got it done," Cameron told reporters.

Pleaded not guilty

"It's an issue that ... has made my blood boil - that this man who has no right to be in our country, who's a threat to our country, that it took so long and was so difficult to deport him," Cameron told reporters.

"Abu Qatada pleaded not guilty," defense lawyer Taysir Diab said on Sunday after the closed-door hearing before a military tribunal.

"I will appeal tomorrow to the (state security) court to release him on bail," he added.

The cleric was taken to the courthouse near Marka military airfield in east Amman just hours after he was flown in from Britain.

"State security court prosecutors charged Abu Qatada with conspiracy to carry out terrorist acts," a judicial official told AFP.

"He was remanded in judicial custody for 15 days in the Muwaqqar prison" in eastern Jordan, he added.

Muwaqqar is a maximum security facility built in 2007 that houses 1,100 inmates, most of them Islamist terror convicts.

"Abu Qatada told prosecutors that it was his wish to return to Jordan and that he is satisfied with that," Diab said.

A date for the trial has not yet been set.

"I still do not know if he is in solitary confinement. The prosecutors' decision did not specify," Diab said.

Reporters were not allowed into the courtroom despite a pledge by Information Minister Mohammad Momani of "transparency" in Jordan's handling of Abu Qatada's retrial.

Abu Qatada was condemned to death in absentia in 1999 for conspiracy to carry out terror attacks, including on the US school in Amman, but the sentence was immediately commuted to life imprisonment with hard labor.

In 2000, he was sentenced in his absence to 15 years for plotting to carry out terror attacks on tourists in Jordan during millennium celebrations.

Jordanian law gives him the right to a retrial with him present in the dock.

Britain was finally able to expel the 53-year-old father-of-five to Jordan after the two governments last month ratified a Treaty on Mutual Legal Assistance in Criminal Matters, guaranteeing that evidence obtained by torture would not be used in his retrial.

"His retrial will be conducted in line with international standards, protecting his rights and ensuring justice, fairness, credibility and transparency," Momani told the Petra News Agency.

Abu Qatada's father and three brothers met him at the court.

Reuters - AFP