Abu Hamza al-Masri, an Egyptian-born British citizen, and four of his followers lost their last appeal against extradition to the United States Friday and will most likely be flown out of the country within days.
"Each of the claimants' applications for permission to apply for judicial review or for a re-opening of the statutory appeals be dismissed," Sir John Thomas, President of the Queen's Bench Division, and Justice Ouseley ruled.
"It follows that their extradition to the United States of America may proceed immediately," they added in their ruling.
The one-eyed Muslim cleric lost his final appeal after a U.K. High Court ruled he was fit to travel. His lawyer Alun Jones claimed he needed further testing, including a brain scan, after suffering from poor health for years.
He also stated confinement practices in U.S. penitentiaries violated European prison standards, making it illegal to send Abu Hamza to America, something the court also did not find.
The U.S. sought his extradition eight years ago, claiming he tried to set up a terrorist training camp in Oregon, supported al-Qaeda and aided in a kidnapping in Yemen.
The United States also claims the north London Finsbury Park Mosque where he preached for years has been a well-known breeding ground for Muslim extremists.
Abu Hamza, and his followers Khaled al-Fawwaz, Adel Abdul Bary, Babar Ahmad and Syed Ahsan, will be extradited in the short term - a matter of months rather than years, the court said.
"The United States is pleased that the UK judicial authorities approved the extraditions," a statement from the U.S. embassy in London read. "These extraditions mark the end of a lengthy process of litigation through the UK courts and the ECHR [European Court of Human Rights]."
Abu Hamza is no stranger to incarceration. British authorities jailed him in 2006 for urging British Muslims to kill Jews and other non-Muslims in speeches. He was also indicted by a U.S. court in 2004 for his role in the death of three Britons and an Australian taken hostage in Yemen in 1998.
In his past, he was also lived in Afghanistan as a Mujahideen fighting the Soviet Union invasion. Here, he lost his the use of his eye and both hands during a de-mining accident. He now wears a hook prosthesis where his right hand should be.
Abu Hamza, born Mustafa Kamel Mustafa, came to Britain as a civil engineering student in 1979. After two marriages and eight children, he reached the pinnacle of his clerical career when he gave a speech in central London in 2003 expressing his wish to create an Islamic state.
He has also expressed his support for Osama bin Laden, the Taliban and 9/11. Once in the U.S., he could be sent to one of the country's "Supermax" prisons with a 100 year sentence.
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