Radical cleric Abu Hamza launches bid to avoid extradition

Convicted radical Islamic cleric on Tuesday launched a last-minute appeal in a British court against extradition to the United States, two days after a European court ruled he could be handed over to Washington on terrorism charges.

The Strasbourg-based European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) had rejected the appeal by Hamza and four other terror suspects to halt their extradition to the US on the ground that they would face inhumane treatment in the US if sent there.

Egyptian-born Hamza and a second terror suspect, Khaled Al-Fawwaz, had both lodged legal challenges with the high court in London, an official said.

Hamza, the former imam of the Finsbury Park mosque in north London, is wanted in the US on charges including setting up an Al Qaeda-style training camp for militants in the northwestern US state of Oregon.

He is also accused of having sent money and recruits to assist Afghanistan's Taliban and al-Qaeda, and of helping a gang of kidnappers in Yemen who abducted a 16-strong party of Western tourists in 1998.

Hamza, who is in his mid-50s was jailed in Britain for seven years in 2006 for using speeches on the streets of London to incite followers to murder non-believers.