Abu Qatada Freed!! Won’t Remain In The UK

The 53-year-old is now starting a new life as a free man after the judge decided there was not enough evidence to convict him.
Home Secretary Theresa May has insisted Abu Qatada will not be returning to the UK, as the preacher was pictured falling to the floor in an emotional reunion with supporters.

The radical preacher was facing charges over the so-called "millennium plot" to bomb Western tourists during New Year celebrations in Jordan.

Family members of radical Muslim cleric Abu Qatada

Abu Qatada's family members celebrate in the Amman court

Abu Qatada was deported from the UK last year following a long-running battle by the Home Office which cost millions of pounds.

The Palestinian-Jordanian preacher was once referred to as "Osama Bin Laden's right-hand man in Europe" by a Spanish judge.

Home Secretary Theresa May said it was still the right decision to deport him.

Radical Muslim cleric Abu Qatada

Abu Qatada seemed confident before the verdict

She said: "The UK courts here were very clear that Abu Qatada posed a threat to our national security. That's why we we were pleased, as a Government, to be able to remove him.

"He is subject to a deportation order. He is also subject to a UN-travel ban - that means he will not be returning to the UK."

Sky's Tom Rayner, at the trial in Amman, said Abu Qatada seemed to be expecting the verdict and gave a "wink and a kind of smile" to his family when he stepped into the caged dock.

Abu Qatada

Abu Qatada was deported and flown out of RAF Northolt last year

The preacher's supporters were in raptures, with family members in tears when the judge handed down his verdict in the Jordanian capital.

Abu Qatada had already been acquitted in June over a series of 1998 bomb plots.

The cleric had previously been convicted and sentenced on both charges by a trial in absentia, but had avoided Jordanian justice after getting asylum in the UK.

Theresa May signing a treaty with Jordan

Theresa May signed an agreement with Jordan to deport the cleric

He lost his refugee status in 2002 when he was detained on suspicion of terrorism offences, and was held in indefinite detention at high-security prisons, such as Belmarsh, but never stood trial.

Abu Qatada was eventually thrown out of the country in July 2013 after a high-profile campaign by the Government, which argued he was a threat to national security.

Protesters hold a placard against terror suspect Abu Qatada upon his arrival at his home in northwest London

People campaigned to get him removed from the UK

It came after a "memorandum of understanding" between the UK and Jordan assured he would receive a fair trial.

The agreement stipulated that although he would be tried in a military-security court, the case would be heard by a civilian judge.

Crucially, it also said that evidence which may have been acquired through torture would not be eligible in the case.

With that guarantee in place, Tom Rayner added "the judge said there simply wasn't enough evidence to convict him".

He said: "The real question is what he will do here in Jordan. He is a renowned jihadist figure, he is a known al Qaeda sympathiser."

Rayner added that Abu Qatada's criticism of Islamic State could ironically make him a "stabilising force" within the country in case extremists were thinking of a backlash over the country's support for US airstrikes.