Britain intends to extradite jailed Islamist cleric Abu Hamza al-Masri to the United States to face terror charges, the Home Office said Thursday.
The interior ministry made the announcement after Home Secretary Jacqui Smith signed an extradition order.
Hamza has 14 days to appeal. If he does not do so, he will be handed over to US authorities within 28 days.
Washington claims Hamza was part of a global plot to wage holy war or jihad against Western countries, and US authorities want him to stand trial over the 1998 abduction of 16 Western tourists in Yemen.
He is also accused of helping to set up a training camp for Islamist extremists in the north-west US state of Oregon and helping to fund the trip of a would-be jihadists to an extremist training camp in the Middle East.
The one-eyed, hook-handed former imam of the Finsbury Park Mosque in north London has been in jail since February 2006, when he was sentenced to seven years for crimes of race hatred and soliciting to murder.
Egyptian by birth but British by marriage, Hamza is being held in the high-security Belmarsh jail in south-east London.
He was originally arrested on an extradition warrant from the US authorities in May 2004.
But the extradition process was put on hold until after his trial -- which his legal team claimed was politically motivated -- and an appeal against his conviction.
The path was cleared for extradition hearings when Britain's highest court ruled in January 2007 that he had no grounds for appeal.
Hamza has a chequered medical history, suffering from diabetes and high blood pressure.
The cleric has been dubbed "Captain Hook" by some British tabloid newspapers due to his prosthetic right hand.
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=080207193516.wsjpk1it&show_article=1
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