Justice!

Tuesday, February 07, 2006

Radical Muslim cleric Abu Hamza al-Masri was sentenced to seven years in prison on Tuesday after being found guilty of fomenting racial hatred and inciting followers in Britain to kill non-Muslims.

The former imam at London's Finsbury Park mosque was also found guilty of possessing a terrorist document (the Encyclopedia of the Afghani Jihad) and threatening or abusive recordings.

A jury found him guilty of seven of nine charges of soliciting murder, and two charges of stirring racial hatred. He had faced 15 charges in all.

He was then sentenced to seven years for the most serious charge he faced, of soliciting murder, and will serve concurrent sentences on the other charges. The jury had the option of sentencing Al-Masri to life.

Egyptian-born al-Masri, who has only one eye and a hook replacing one of his hands, is perhaps Britain's best-known Islamist speaker.

His mosque has been linked to a number of terrorist suspects, including Zacarias Moussaoui, the only person charged criminally by the United States in connection with the Sept. 11 attacks, and Richard Reid, who was arrested after trying to detonate a bomb hidden in his shoe while on a trans-Atlantic flight.

Al-Masri's trial began Jan. 11. Authorities in Washington have been closely watching the proceedings because they have charged him with trying to set up a terrorist training camp in Oregon, conspiring to take hostages in Yemen and facilitating terror training in Afghanistan.

British law dictates that the domestic charges had to take precedence, but now that he has been convicted, it's possible al-Masri could be sent to the United States for a trial.

Al-Masri's lawyers have fought against extradition, arguing he wouldn't receive a fair hearing in the U.S. where officials have publicly called him a terrorist supporter.

They are also concerned a U.S. court could mete out the death penalty, which is banned in Britain.