A date has been set for Britain’s most notorious Muslim cleric to begin his battle to stay in Britain.
Abu Hamza, 44, whose appeal will cost taxpayers a reported £250,000, will go before a panel of judges at the Special Immigration Appeals Commission in central London next January.
Hamza is appealing against Home Secretary David Blunkett’s attempt to strip him of UK citizenship and send him back to the Yemen.
The hook-handed preacher from north London has caused outrage with a string of firebrand statements about Iraq and September 11.
The Home Secretary wants him deported for making inflammatory speeches at Finsbury Park mosque in north London.
He could face extradition to Yemen, from where he came to Britain as a student in 1980.