Life sentence for 'evil and barbaric' preacher

AAP

10 Jan, 2015 04:00 PM2 mins to read

Abu Hamza will spend life in prison. Photo / AP

A US judge has sentenced British hate preacher Abu Hamza to life behind bars for 11 terrorism and kidnapping convictions, calling his crimes that spanned the globe evil and barbaric.

The hook-handed imam, blind in one eye and a double-hand amputee, became a tabloid bogeyman in Britain for preaching vitriolic, anti-American sermons at the Finsbury Park mosque in north London.

He stared impassively at the table and pursed his lips as Judge Katherine Forrest sentenced him to a life sentence, eight months after he was convicted by a jury in May.

He alarmed the jury during the four-week trial by speaking of his love for al-Qaeda mastermind Osama bin Laden and comparing himself to Irish republican leader Gerry Adams.

Abu Hamza showed no remorse for his crimes. He again pleaded his innocence in court and demanded to be sent to a federal prison hospital, where he said he would be better treated as a double amputee suffering from diabetes.

"With all honesty I do maintain my innocence," he said, dressed in navy scrubs and gesticulating with his raw, red stumps. His face was pale behind a grey and white beard.

Forrest said she had thought long and hard about the severity of the sentence but concluded the world would not be safe with him a free man.

She called his crimes barbaric and "obviously unacceptable in a civilised society".

It took the jury 12 hours to convict him of facilitating the 1998 abduction of 16 Western tourists in Yemen, providing material support to al-Qaeda, assisting the Taliban and sending terror recruits to Afghanistan.

Abu Hamza, whose full name is Mustafa Kamel Mustafa, provided the kidnappers with a satellite phone, acted as an intermediary and gave them advice. Four of the kidnapped tourists were killed.

He was also convicted of trying to set up a terror training camp in Oregon in 1999 and of promoting violent, global jihad.

Forrest sentenced him to two life sentences on two counts related to the Yemen kidnapping and a combined total of 100 years on the nine other counts, all to be served concurrently.