Hamza May Go Free As Witness Backs Down
August 20, 2007
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One of Britain’s most notorious Islamic extremists may be freed from prison as early as next year after an Al-Qaeda “supergrass” said he was no longer prepared to testify against him.
Abu Hamza al-Masri, the hook-handed firebrand who used to preach at Finsbury Park mosque in north London, was expected to be extradited to America for trial on charges including trying to establish a terrorist camp in Oregon.
But in a New York courtroom last week James Ujaama, 41, the key witness against Hamza, appeared to have reneged on a deal to testify against him. The change of heart could lead to the collapse of the American request for Hamza’s extradition now going through British courts.
Eight of the 11 counts on which the case rests depend on Ujaama’s evidence. Hamza faces a possible total of 100 years in prison in America.
The Egyptian-born cleric, 49, is serving a seven-year sentence in Belmarsh prison, southeast London, for soliciting murder and inciting racial hatred. But because he has already spent more than three years in prison and on remand, he will qualify for parole early next year and will go free if the extradition case collapses.
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