Block on cleric Hamza's legal aid

Extremist Muslim cleric Abu Hamza al-Masri will not get state aid to fight his expulsion from Britain, Whitehall sources have revealed.

A legal panel decided this week that the former Finsbury Park mosque imam was entitled to taxpayers' cash to back his appeal against the removal of his British citizenship.

But under UN rules, the Treasury has the final say on any state funds for any associates of Al Qaeda and the Evening Standard has learned that Gordon Brown will not approve any payments.

A Treasury spokesman said it could not comment on individual cases in ongoing legal matters. However, a senior Government source said Hamza would not succeed in his attempts to have his state benefits, which in turn entitle him to legal aid, restored.

"As far as we are concerned, he will not get any of this money back," the source said.

Hamza begins his threeweek appeal next Monday against Home Secretary David Blunkett ' s decision to renounce his citizenship. The cost of the case could run into tens of thousands of pounds.

Hamza continues to preach his own version of fundamentalist Islam on the street outside Finsbury Park mosque every week.

The Government is wary of giving him any grounds for a judicial review which would in turn delay action on his citizenship.

It does not want to say anything publicly which would jeopardise its case against him.