Hate preacher Abu Hamza makes fresh bid to return to UK

Wife of convicted terrorist writes to New York judge asking for her husband to be moved out of maximum security jail

Hate preacher Abu Hamza has launched a fresh bid to return to the UK nearly ten years after he was jailed for a slew of terrorist offences.

The convicted terrorist’s wife is calling for him to be released from the maximum security jail where he is being held in the US to “come back home to his family where he belongs”.

Hook-handed Hamza was jailed in 2015 for a variety of terror offences following his extradition from the UK, where he was an imam at Finsbury Park mosque in north London.

Najat Chaffe, his second wife, has written to a New York judge asking for his return to the UK from the ADX Florence “supermax” prison in Colorado, where he has been kept in solitary confinement for eight years.

Abu Hamza is being held in the US

“The yearning to have him back in our lives has only intensified over time”, she wrote last month in a letter, seen by The Sunday Telegraph.

“To witness his reunion with our precious grandchildren and to enjoy quality time together as a family would be a dream come true.”

The Egyptian cleric was jailed in the UK in 2006 after being found guilty of inciting violence. In 2012, he was extradited to the US and found guilty of 11 terror offences.

It is not the first time Hamza has tried to return to the UK.

In 2017 he complained about the “inhuman and degrading” conditions at ADX Florence, which he argued were a breach of his human rights.

Court documents submitted under his real name, Mostafa Kamel Mostafa, stated he was “confined within a cell-sized cage” during the hour of recreation time he is given each day, The Sunday Times reported.

It also said his cell is unsuitable for the double-amputee, who is blind in one eye, adding: “The stumps in both arms are subject to regular outbreaks of infection, which have been increasing in severity.”

The 242-page appeal said when he was fighting extradition while in Belmarsh maximum security prison, Hamza was seen by a doctor or nurse up to five times a week and could mix with other inmates.

His lawyers argued his treatment at ADX Florence breached Article 3 of the Human Rights Act, which prohibits torture and inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.

Michael Bachrach, one of his appeal lawyers, told the paper: “He would go back to Belmarsh in a second if he could.”

Mr Bachrach, who is a specialist on terrorism cases, added: “We strongly believe that the conditions of his confinement violate the expectations of the European Convention on Human Rights and the promises that were made by the US government to the [British and European] courts as part of the extradition process.”