Radical Muslim cleric sentenced to life in U.S. for supporting terrorism

PanARMENIAN.Net - Radical Muslim cleric Abu Hamza al-Masri has been sentenced to life in prison by a court in New York for supporting terrorism, BBC News reports.

He was convicted in May of multiple charges, including hostage-taking and plotting to set up a terrorism training camp in the U.S.

His trial followed a lengthy extradition process from the UK.

During the sentencing, his lawyers asked the judge to take into account his missing hands and eye.

They also argued a plan to imprison Abu Hamza in Colorado's Supermax federal prison would violate assurances the U.S. made to judges in London to secure his 2012 extradition.

Prosecutors argued on Friday, Jan 9, that the U.S. government had never made such a promise to the UK and life in prison was the only appropriate sentence.

Judge Katherine Forrest called Abu Hamza's actions "barbaric" and "misguided" and said she was sentencing him to life because she could not think of a time when it would be safe to release him.

She added she would leave the decision where he would spend his imprisonment to federal prison officials.

The judge read out the names of the four British tourists killed in the Yemen kidnapping in 1998 and described Abu Hamza's actions as barbaric.

The U.S. justice department hailed the sentence.

"Abu Hamza is an unrepentant all-purpose terrorist," Assistant Attorney General for National Security John Carlin said in a statement. "With today's sentence, he is being held accountable for the many ways in which he supported terrorism and other terrorists through much of his life."

The cleric, who was born Mustafa Kamel Mustafa, was convicted last May in New York on 11 counts, including involvement in a plot to take Western tourists hostages in Yemen in 1998.

Three Britons and an Australian died when the Yemeni army launched a rescue bid. Laurence Whitehouse, from Hampshire, UK, escaped but his wife Margaret was killed.