By Michael Burleigh, and Tom Whitehead of Daily Telegraph
His family has cost the taxpayer more than £500,000 in benefits, while his sermons are required reading for terrorists. But next week Abu Qatada could be freed from prison.
The saga of Abu Qatada is like a mirror to the society we have become. The Jordanian Palestinian was born Omar Othman in Bethlehem in 1960. He entered Britain on a forged United Arab Emirates passport in 1993 and was granted asylum the following year. Since 2002, Qatada has spent most of his time in detention, because successive home secretaries, including Theresa May, have argued that he is “a very dangerous man”, though – uniquely – the BBC say he is a “radical”, not an “extremist’. In reality, Qatada is listed on the consolidated United Nations list of international terrorists under “Al-Qaeda Associates”.
Although British judges decided he could be deported to Jordan, they were overruled by their counterparts in Strasbourg. However, it is the British justice system that is responsible for Qatada’s prospective release from detention, as early as Monday, and the likely lapse of revised home supervision arrangements. During his odyssey through the courts, Qatada has been assiduously represented by the likes of Gareth Peirce, with his rights championed by NGOs such as Justice. It is tempting to wonder how much lawyers’ fees have cost the British taxpayer.
Home to Mr Qatada in recent years has been the detainee wing at Long Lartin maximum security prison in Worcestershire. A quarter of the inmates are Muslims, but Qatada is not allowed near them. He is one of nine “detainees” who refused to join the larger pool of vulnerable prisoners lest they be stigmatised as sex offenders.