Abu Hamza forced to sit in court, humiliated, with nothing but his naked, odd looking stumps.

He claims the prison conditions are making him "depressed". Terror suspects may be kept in solitary confinement 23 hours a day.



Radical Muslim cleric Abu Hamza yesterday appeared at a court in New York - and demanded the return of his notorious hooks. The hate preacher, who lost his hands in an explosion, did not enter a plea during the brief hearing and was remanded in custody ahead of his next appearance on Tuesday.

The former imam at the Finsbury Park mosque, who had his hooks removed for 'security reasons', has demanded they are returned so 'he can use his arms'.




Also in New York, Adel Abdul Bary and Khaled al-Fawwaz pleaded not guilty while earlier in the day Babar Ahmad and Talha Ahsan pleaded not guilty in a court in Connecticut. The group landed in the U.S this morning, less than 24 hours after High Court judges in London threw out his last-ditch bid to stay in the UK.Hamza faces 11 charges, that include conspiring with Seattle men to set up a terrorist training camp in Oregon and helping abduct 16 hostages, two of them American tourists, in Yemen in 1998.

The
Islamist fanatic lost the last of his countless appeals in a legal
farce that has seen him thwart extradition for more than eight years at a
cost to taxpayers of millions of pounds.Yesterday an armoured police van collected the hate preacher from HMP Long Lartin in Worcestershire at around 7.30pm.


The van, heavily flanked by a number of other police vehicles with their emergency lights on, drove more than 130 miles to the U.S Air Force base RAF Mildenhall in Suffolk.Two planes carrying Hamza and the four other terror suspects who also lost their legal bid - took off shortly before midnight.

The convoy of vehicles with blue flashing lights earlier entered the military base through a side entrance at 10.10pm where paperwork was then completed before the group were successfully handed over too US marshals after years of fighting against it.Prime Minister David Cameron said today: 'I'm absolutely delighted that Abu Hamza is now out of this country.'


'Like the rest of the public I'm sick to the back teeth of people who come here, threaten our country, who stay at vast expense to the taxpayer and we can't get rid of them. 'I'm delighted on this occasion we've managed to send this person off to a country where he will face justice.'

Speaking after the US-bound flights had taken off, Mrs May said: 'I am pleased the decision of the court meant that these men, who used every available opportunity to frustrate and delay the extradition process over many years, could finally be removed. 'This government has co-operated fully with the courts and pressed at every stage to ensure this happened.'


She added: 'We have worked tirelessly, alongside the US authorities, the police and the prison
service, to put plans in place so that tonight these men could be handed over within hours of the court's decision.

'It is right that these men, who are all accused of very serious offences, will finally face justice.'

Yesterday Hamza’s lawyers – in a move condemned as a blatant delaying tactic – had gone back to court again to claim he was unfit to stand trial.

They said the ‘harsh’ conditions in his cell at HMP Belmarsh had left him unwell, sleep-deprived and depressed – and demanded an MRI scan.

After a three-day hearing, a judge at the High Court in London yesterday said he was ‘wholly unpersuaded’ by their claims, adding: ‘The sooner he is put on trial, the better.’Making clear no further appeals would be allowed in the case, Sir John Thomas, President of the Queen’s Bench Division, rejected the idea that Hamza was unfit to plead.

If depressed, he said, Hamza could get anti-depressants in the US.




He also criticised delays in the extradition process, saying it was ‘unacceptable’ that the case should have taken so long, and warning of ‘real dangers’ of a system that allows repeated appeals on issues that had already been decided.

The judges also rejected legal challenges by Babar Ahmad, Syed Ahsan, Khaled Al-Fawwaz and Adel Abdul Bary, who were part of the convoy to arrive at the airbase.Hamza is now expected to be transferred to the Special Housing Unit of the Metropolitan Correctional Centre in Manhattan.

Previous terror suspects held there have been kept in solitary confinement for 23 hours a day.

While all five defendants were first presented on Saturday before judges in New York and Connecticut, there is little likelihood that a full trial will begin soon.

More