Trial date set for radical cleric in U.K.

LONDON (AP) — Radical Muslim cleric Abu Hamza al-Masri will stand trial beginning July 4 on charges including soliciting the murder of Jews and other non-Muslims, a judge decided Tuesday.

Judge Peter Beaumont set the date at a brief hearing at London’s Central Criminal Court but did not announce where the trial would be held.

Al-Masri had been scheduled to appear via a videolink from Belmarsh high-security prison in south London, but did not. Defense lawyer Paul Hynes said the cleric was unable to walk and referred to a “past physical difficulty.”

Adina Ezekiel, the attorney acting for the government, said colleagues had informed her that al-Masri claimed he couldn’t walk because his toenails were too long. She said prosecutors were “very cynical” about the claim.

British prosecutors charged al-Masri, Britain’s highest-profile Islamic radical, on Oct. 19, pre-empting a U.S. bid to extradite him on terrorism-related charges. Under British law the domestic charges, which carry a maximum sentence of life in prison, take precedence over the extradition case.

The Egyptian-born cleric — who has one eye and hooks for hands, which he says were lost fighting Soviet troops in Afghanistan in the 1980s — was arrested in May after U.S. authorities charged him with trying to establish a terrorist training camp in the western state of Oregon, involvement in hostage-taking in Yemen and funding terrorism training in Afghanistan.

The United States plans to resume the extradition case once he is convicted or cleared of the British charges.

Source

(Listed if other than Religion News Blog, or if not shown above)
Associated Press, via USAToday.com, USA
Jan. 4, 2005
www.usatoday.com

Religion News Blog posted this on Tuesday January 4, 2005.
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