Hate preacher Abu Hamza has won his appeal against the government's attempts to strip him of his passport

Jailed radical Muslim preacher Abu Hamza won an appeal against a government bid to strip him of his British passport yesterday after a tribunal ruled the move would make him stateless.


Infamous: Hamza is the former imam of the once-notorious Finsbury
Park mosque in north London. pic/AFP

The Egyptian-born Hamza, who has one eye and a hook for one hand, was jailed in Britain for seven years in 2007 for inciting followers to murder non-believers, and is fighting extradition to the United States.

The cleric had argued that removing his passport would effectively render him without a state as he had already been stripped of his Egyptian citizenship.

"We are satisfied on balance of probabilities that if a deprivation order were to be made, the appellant would be made stateless," judge Edward Mitting of Britain's Special Immigration Appeals Commission said in a ruling.

Britain's interior ministry, the Home Office, had argued at a hearing in London last month that there was no documentation to prove that Hamza was no longer an Egyptian national.

But the tribunal said he had "very good grounds for believing" he had been stripped of his citizenship.

The European Court of Human Rights in July halted the extradition of Hamza and three other men from Britain to the United States on terror charges, saying the case needed further examination.

Hamza is the former imam of the once-notorious Finsbury Park mosque in north London.

Abu Hamza is wanted in the United States on charges including setting up an Al-Qaeda-style training camp for militants in the northwest state of Oregon.

However, the judgment came with some criticism. Senior Conservative MP Patrick Mercer slammed: "The stupidity of this case continues to amaze me.

Abu Hamza is an enemy of the state. This is a blunder on a monumental scale which will result in the spending of further taxpayers' money and danger to the British people."

Douglas Murray, director of the Centre for Social Cohesion, blasted: "This is outrageous. In no way is Hamza a British citizen."