HATE preacher Abu Hamza yesterday launched a new bid to keep his British passport in a legal battle that has so far cost £1.4million.
Hamza is fighting attempts to strip him of his citizenship arguing it is a breach of his human rights.
The hook-handed cleric says that he has been disowned by his native Egypt and that taking away his British passport would leave him “stateless”.
Hamza, 52, is in high-security Belmarsh prison, south London, where he is fighting an attempt by the Home Office to extradite him to the US where he is wanted on terror charges.
The cleric’s legal battle has run for more than six years. Legal experts predict the final bill will top £2million. The latest court hearing got underway yesterday at the Special Immigration Appeals Commission in central London. It is expected to last three days at a cost of £120,000.
Hamza’s publicly funded legal team includes the eminent barrister, Ed Fitzgerald, QC, whose previous clients included child killers Myra Hindley and Jon Venables. The Home Office has its own barrister, junior and lawyers.
One of Hamza’s team, Amanda Weston, told the court that her client would have no state to call home if his passport was removed. She said: “We say that the international convention places an obligation on the UK to prevent statelessness.”
Hamza was jailed for seven years in 2006 for inciting murder and race hate. He first came to Britain in the 1980s on a student visa. He got a UK passport after marrying a British woman. Hamza later embraced a radical form of Islam and travelled to Afghanistan where he lost both hands and an eye in a land mine explosion.