Abu Qatada ordered to return to prison

Abu Qatada at his north London home
Abu Qatada at his north London home from where he breached his bail conditions. Photograph: Jonathan Evans/Rex Features

The radical Islamist cleric Abu Qatada today had his bail revoked and was returned to indefinite detention in a maximum security prison, pending the outcome of a legal battle over his deportation to Jordan.

The Special Immigration Appeals Commission, in effect Britain's national security court, ruled that evidence from the security services heard in secret, had convinced them that there was now an increased risk that Qatada would try to abscond.

Qatada, who was dubbed by a Spanish judge as Osama bin Laden's right hand man in Europe, was released on bail in June to live with his family in west London, under a 22-hour curfew, after the court of appeal ruled it was unsafe to return him to Jordan.

The radical cleric has already spent three and half years in maximum security jails since he was first declared a risk to national security in January 2001, on the grounds that he encouraged other extremists to commit acts of terrorism by providing religious sanction for them.

The SIAC judges said that their decision to revoke his bail was based on the evidence they had heard in secret. "The secretary of state relies on information contained in the closed case to justify the revocation of bail." This remains secret and is only spelled out in a separate closed, unpublished judgment.

The open version of the judgment published today said that none of the reasons put forward by the Home Office in the public sessions of the commission's two-day hearing would justify the revocation of his bail. These included the seizure at his home of memory cards, MP3 players, computer discs and video tapes.

They also rejected security service arguments that the publication of a message from a senior al-Qaeda figure on a jihadist website in July appealing to religious scholars to return to the battlefield, and the pending government appeal to the House of Lords against the decision not to deport him, also increased the risk of absconding.

The judges said it has been a longstanding assessment of the security services that Qatada, also known as Mohammad Othman, is a senior religious extremist with links to al-Qaeda and these factors in themselves did not justify revoking his bail.

Before the Siac hearing got under way it had been reported that Qatada was trying to flee the country, but Mr Justice Mitting, sitting with two other immigration judges, said that the cleric's declared interest in renouncing his Jordanian citizenship and attempting to go to the country of his birth, Palestine, did not amount to a breach of his bail. They said that they did not regard as at all significant the fact that he had not formally notified the Home Office of attempts on his behalf to find a third country, other than Jordan, willing to take him.

"If the appellant identifies a state or territory willing to receive him, and seeks to put into effect his declared wish to go there, he will be fulfilling the obligation imposed on him by the deportation order to depart the United Kingdom... We do not, however, see any realistic prospect that either of these two possibilities will be open to him in the near or medium term," they added.

During the hearing, his barrister, Edward Fitzgerald QC, said that his lawyer, Gareth Peirce, and writer, Victoria Brittain, had been involved in the initial attempts to find a country willing to take Qatada.

The home secretary, Jacqui Smith, said she was pleased that Qatada's bail had been revoked: "He poses a significant threat to our national security and I am pleased that he will be detained pending his deportation, which I'm working hard to secure."

Qatada was back in Belmarsh prison in east London last night, but is expected to be moved to Long Lartin maximum security prison in the near future.

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