Al Qaeda 'recruiter' release bid

Radical Islamic preacher Abu Qatada today began a legal battle to be released from Belmarsh Prison.

He is being held at the topsecurity jail under emergency powers introduced after September 11 that allow foreign nationals deemed a threat to national security to be locked up without charge.

The Home Office claims he has inspired young men to join al Qaeda and he is alleged to have recruited shoebomber Richard Reid.

Lawyers for the former preacher started a case in front of a panel of three judges at the Special Immigration Appeals Commission.

His legal team have been vetted by MI5 and are not allowed to discuss with their client the evidence they will hear when the court sits in closed session later this week.

Evidence gathered at Guantanamo Bay will be presented by the intelligence services, which will call MI5 agents as witnesses. His lawyers will attempt to refute Government evidence that Qatada is a danger.

Qatada - real name Sheikh Omar Mahmood Abu Omar - was seized by police in October last year. He was found by police in a council house in Bermondsey, where he was living since leaving his Acton home hours before the emergency legislation came into force.

The Palestinian-born preacher was sentenced to death in absentia in Jordan for his part in a plot to kill American tourists.

Videos made by the cleric were found in a Hamburg flat used by Mohammed Atta, the ringleader of the September 11 attacks, and Richard Reid was a frequent visitor to his meetings at the Four Feathers Youth Club in Baker Street and attended Finsbury Park Mosque.