Thread: Abu Qatada's family follow him out of Britain

The family of radical preacher Abu Qatada have left Britain for good after finally dropping their marathon battle to stay in the country.

Abu Qatada's family leave their rented accommodation in Stanmore. It is believed they are heading to Jordan. Photo: WARREN ALLOTT


By Martin Evans, Crime Correspondent

7:20PM BST 15 Aug 2013

Abu Qatada's wife and five children left their taxpayer funded home in north-west London and were driven to Heathrow Airport by officials from the Home Office just after lunchtime.

They then boarded the 5.05pm American Airlines flight to Amman, where Qatada is currently awaiting trial of terrorism charges.

The family’s departure signals a victory for the Home Office, which successfully secured Qatada’s deportation from Britain last month, following a decade long legal battle, which is estimated to have cost the taxpayer in excess of £3 million.

A spokesman for the Home Office confirmed that the family had left and said they had also abandoned their bid to be granted the right to live here permanently.

The spokesman said: “Abu Qatada’s wife and five children have now left the UK. The family has formally agreed to stop an outstanding application for indefinite leave to remain.”

Sources said the Home Secretary would also use the powers available to her to prevent the family from returning to Britain in the future.

Qatada fled to Britain from Jordan in 1993 with his wife and three children, using a forged United Arab Emirates passport. He went on to have two more children in Britain.
He claimed asylum on the grounds of religious persecution and was granted leave to remain in 1994.
Five years later he was convicted in absentia in Jordan of terror charges and sentenced to life imprisonment.
In 2001 he was questioned over alleged links to a German terror cell and became one of the country’s most wanted men when he went on the run.
He was finally arrested in 2002 and detained at Belmarsh high security jail in south east London, while the government tried to work out what to do with him.
Attempts to deport him to his native Jordan were persistently frustrated by the European Courts which argued that such action would breach his human rights.
However when the Jordanian government ratified a new treaty, providing assurances over his right to a fair trial, Qatada gave up his fight to remain in Britain.
He left Britain on a private jet last month and is currently being held at Muwaqqar prison outside Amman, awaiting a retrial on terror offences.
His wife and children had been living in a half a million pound detached house in Stanmore, Middlesex after being moved there from their previous home in Acton, west London.
They were receiving benefits worth around £800 a week and had applied for the right to remain in Britain indefinitely.
But in recent months pressure had been mounting on the family to follow Qatada back to Jordan.
Neighbours in the street where they had been living since December had recently launched a collective protest about their presence and had threatened to stop paying their council tax until they were removed.
Members of the extremist English Defence League had also held protests against the family’s continued presence in the UK.
In a letter to an Islamic website, one of Qatada’s sons recently wrote: “Racist pressure groups in Britain hold demonstrations outside the house on a weekly basis between four in the afternoon and eleven in the evening. These demonstrators would scream and curse at us and at Islam.”
But in the letter he also claimed that the house was too small for the family and was too far from the schools attended by the younger children.
Before Qatada’s deportation the family had applied for the right to leave Britain for a third country, but the Home Office said the only country they could travel to was Jordan.
In the letter he wrote: “Let no one be under the impression that we want to stay here after having suffered so much."


Abu Qatada's family follow him out of Britain - Telegraph

Originally Posted by Bangyai

They then boarded the 5.05pm American Airlines flight to Amman,

Oh the irony. Wonder if they were singing

Bye...

How do they know that is not Snowden?

Maybe she has a spoon in here underwear?

How to attack attention at the airport? Wear a quilted vest and look Pakistani!

"Home Office victory" my ass. Three million plus pounds of taxpayer money, ten years to get rid of him, and then claiming victory when he, and then his family, left voluntarily, with government employees driving them to the airport. Oh, well done!!!

Should have shot the lot of them, that would have been a victory.

Our craven leaders are leaving that to some future generation.

He only had one wife, surely that is an epic fail in the eyes of Allah.

20 years in the UK on a forged UAE passport and they couldn't deport him 'til now. What a load of bollix.

Originally Posted by Bangyai

Before Qatada’s deportation the family had applied for the right to leave Britain for a third country, but the Home Office said the only country they could travel to was Jordan.
In the letter he wrote: “Let no one be under the impression that we want to stay here after having suffered so much."

Really ? The facts that you tried everything to stay in the UK suggests otherwise.
Lies and deceit from the beginning to the end

Originally Posted by Fluke

Really ? The facts that you tried everything to stay in the UK suggests otherwise. Lies and deceit from the beginning to the end

Sometimes it's best to know where the enemy is. In keeping the twat, they have him under surveillance. Easier for them to monitor him.

Abu Qatada found not guilty by Jordan court of terror plot


Abu Qatada broke down in tears when he was acquitted, says Gordon Corera

Related Stories

• Profile: Abu Qatada
• Abu Qatada deported from Britain

Radical Muslim preacher Abu Qatada has been found not guilty of terrorism offences by a court in Jordan, over an alleged plot in 1998.

A panel of civilian judges sitting at the State Security Court in Amman cleared him of conspiracy to carry out terrorist acts.

Abu Qatada was deported from the UK in July 2013. A verdict on another alleged plot was adjourned until September.

The Home Office said Abu Qatada would not be able to return to Britain.
Torture evidence

This verdict comes after a near decade-long legal battle to force the radical cleric to face trial in his home country, and will raise concerns that he may use his influence to destabilise the Jordanian state at a time of increasing turmoil on its borders.

Abu Qatada, whose real name is Omar Othman, was granted asylum in the UK in 1994 but the security service MI5 increasingly saw him as a national security threat as his views on jihad hardened.

He was accused of conspiracy to commit terrorist acts following a series of bombings, including of a hotel, in Jordan in 1998 and a foiled plot to carry out attacks on civilians in Jordan to mark the millennium.

He was convicted in his absence but the convictions were eventually thrown out because they had been based on evidence which may have been acquired by torturing Abu Qatada's co-defendants.

A treaty signed last year by Jordan and the UK banned the use of such evidence from trials in Jordan, removing the final obstacle to deporting the man described by British judges as a "truly dangerous individual".


Abu Qatada was tried by a panel of civilian judges


When he was deported from the UK in July 2013, Home Secretary Theresa May said she had been "as frustrated as the public" about the estimated £1.7m cost and length of time it had taken to remove him.

The cleric had fought his deportation since 2005.

Home Office minister James Brokenshire said: "Abu Qatada's re-trial in Jordan has been made possible thanks to this government's determination to successfully deport him from the UK.

"While the courts in Jordan have acquitted [Abu] Qatada of one of the two charges against him, it is right the due process of law is allowed to take place in his own country. We await a verdict on the remaining charge."

Mr Brokenshire also said Abu Qatada is subject to a deportation order which means he will be unable to return to the UK. He is also subject to a UN travel ban.

Following the preacher's acquittal, Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg told LBC radio: "It was important that we sent Abu Qatada, after lengthy delay, back to Jordan to face trial".

He's the star of the jihadist world so his writings, lectures and sermons are all taken very seriously” - Laith Alkhouri Extremist content analyst

"What is absolutely clear to me is that this man needed to face justice and needed to do so out of the UK."

When asked if Abu Qatada could return to Britain, Mr Clegg said: 'We don't want this man back" and added that the government would do "everything it could do to prevent that happening".

Chairman of the Commons Home Affairs Select Committee, Keith Vaz, said he was surprised at the verdict. "However, it is right that the Jordanian court has followed due process," he added. "There are still matters outstanding which need to be resolved."

"The British government was right to remove this man from the UK considering his extremist views and potential links to terrorism."

Fawaz Gerges, a professor of Middle Eastern Politics and International Relations at the London School of Economics, said: "Based on everything that we know, the Jordanian government will go to great lengths to keep Abu Qatada in prison, so I don't think the question of him coming to the UK is a real possibility at this particular point."

Agreement 'betrayal'

The trial was conducted at the controversial State Security Court which is housed in a military base in Marka, a suburb in the capital Amman.

At an appearance in December, Abu Qatada complained about the presence of a military judge on the panel as a "betrayal of the agreement" under which he was deported.

This had specified that he must be tried by civilian judges. The make up of the tribunal was subsequently changed.

During the trial Abu Qatada reportedly spoke out about the conflict in neighbouring Syria, urging the two main jihadist factions there, the al-Nusra Front and the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (Isis), to unite behind the leader of al-Qaeda, Ayman al-Zawahiri.


Abu Qatada was flown to Jordan from London after his deportation was approved


The BBC's Steve Swann, reporting from the trial in Amman, says that despite such outbursts, there was little to link Abu Qatada to the two terror plots in this case once the torture evidence was discounted.

A British judge had referred to this as "an extremely thin case" and this has now been proved, our correspondent added.


Smuggled writing

The BBC has seen evidence which suggests Abu Qatada has smuggled out messages and writings from his cell in the high security Muwaqqer prison to his supporters across the world.

Laith Alkhouri, senior analyst with Flashpoint Partners, monitors extremist content online from an office in New York. He has found numerous postings on the internet which claim to be in Abu Qatada's name.

In one, the cleric is alleged to have contacted al-Zawahiri to condemn Isis.

In a letter published by the al-Nusra Front in April the cleric denounced Isis as "the dogs of hellfire... because of their evil actions".

Elsewhere, he has written in praise of jihad as a tool for overthrowing tyrannical leaders of the Muslim world.

Mr Alkhouri told the BBC: "He's the star of the jihadist world so his writings, lectures and sermons are all taken very seriously. Every single word is taken very seriously by jihadists''

Let's hope he hasn't booked 2 weeks at Butlins to celebrate.

Originally Posted by Mr Lick

Abu Qatada found not guilty by Jordan court of terror plot

he has written in praise of jihad as a tool for overthrowing tyrannical leaders of the Muslim world.

I am surprised that the right-wing gun lobby in the USA has not come out to support Abu Qatada.

"No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms. The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government.” – Thomas Jefferson

Are they entilted to dole and housing benefit in Jordan?

In view of his acquittal and the flimsiness of the case against him, founded it seems on nothing more than evidence extracted from torture and other duress, it is right that the British government should apologise for treating him and his family so shabbily. The original reason for detaining him, his alleged involvement in a German terror cell, was evidently without foundation too otherwise the authorities there would have sought his extradition.

I remember those days well. An awful lot of bad things were perpetrated by Bush and Blair on fabricated grounds.

I think Qatada must be the first man to be deported from Britain on no other grounds than he was a Muslim unpleasant to Americans and having a long beard.

I think Qatada must be the first man to be deported from Britain on no other grounds than he was a Muslim unpleasant to Americans and having a long beard.

How much more proof do you need?

Originally Posted by Seekingasylum

In view of his acquittal and the flimsiness of the case against him, founded it seems on nothing more than evidence extracted from torture and other duress, it is right that the British government should apologise for treating him and his family so shabbily. The original reason for detaining him, his alleged involvement in a German terror cell, was evidently without foundation too otherwise the authorities there would have sought his extradition.

I remember those days well. An awful lot of bad things were perpetrated by Bush and Blair on fabricated grounds.

I think Qatada must be the first man to be deported from Britain on no other grounds than he was a Muslim unpleasant to Americans and having a long beard.

Maybe if you asked him really nicely, he and his dole-sucking family might come back home to Londonstan.

Hey, don't get me wrong. He was a bogus asylum seeker from the outset and like thousands who similarly descend upon Europe annually he should not have been granted permission to remain.

But that's not the point. We in Britain have a democracy founded upon law evolved over a thousand years. This episode is demeaning to that heritage.

The well of justice in our country was polluted by Bliar in his bid to ingratiate himself with Bush and this absurd Qatada persecution was just an example of the collateral damage to our system of governance.

It isn't the " who ", it's the " how " that is important.

I wish him only the best......cancer of the eyes etc