'I spied on Abu Qatada for MI5'

Reda Hassaine is the man who put Abu Qatada behind bars. In the late Nineties, Hassaine, an Algerian who sought refuge in London from his country's civil war, was recruited by MI5 to spy on Qatada and his Islamic fundamentalist followers. The evidence Hassaine gathered confirmed the security services' suspicion that Qatada was Osama bin Laden's ambassador in Britain and the dossier he helped collate formed the case on which Qatada was held under anti-terrorism laws.

Now Qatada is to be freed from jail and Hassaine, who risked his neck to try to bring him to justice, is in fear of his life: "The decision to let him out was like a death sentence on me," he told the Evening Standard. "Qatada has sworn that he will have me killed, and now he has the freedom to do it."

Abu Qatada, 44, was held under antiterror legislation after it was revealed he had links to the September 11 hijackers and other al Qaeda conspirators. He is wanted in Jordan for alleged involvement with bomb attacks. The authorities there say he has been convicted in his absence and faces a maximum life sentence, but Britain refuses to extradite him because Jordan has the death penalty.

The story of how Hassaine became Qatada's nemesis is among the most chilling in the undercover war against terror. Until his cover was blown in 2000 - and he was forced into hiding - he provided Scotland Yard's Special Branch and MI5 with an account of what Qatada was doing in London.

"He preached a message of murder on the widest scale imaginable," Hassaine said. "It was my job to relay this back to MI5."

Hassaine, 43, fled Algeria when, as a working journalist, he became a target of Islamic insurgents. The rebel GIA movement murdered thousands of civilians who did not fall in with its ultra-fundamentalist ideals.

"They murdered anyone who they thought were non-believers," said Hassaine. "They killed mothers, babies - anyone. When I came to London, I felt here, at last, was a society where such hatred did not exist."

Hassaine came to learn that this judgment did not accord with the facts. As a member of the Algerian refugee community he was told about a mosque in Seven Sisters Road, Finsbury Park - close to the Finsbury Park Mosque which was to become notorious - where Algerians could learn news about their own country. "This news was the worst possible," Hassaine said. "It was news of the recently murdered. They printed a publication that came out every Friday, detailing the atrocities and the victims who had been killed in the name of Islam."

The editor of this publication, he learned, was Qatada, a Palestinian establishing himself as a radical cleric. Later, Hassaine learned that Qatada had come to England on a forged passport in 1993. He claimed asylum for himself, his wife and three children. In 1994 he was granted leave to remain.

He was given a house and benefits, which, following his release from prison, will resume. He now has five children and his benefits run at something over ?1,000 a month.

In 1994, Hassaine applied to the French embassy in London for French citizenship. During discussions with embassy staff, he said, he was introduced to the London head of the DGSE - Direction Generale de Securite Exterieure - the French equivalent of MI6.

"The French were very worried about Britain's relaxed attitude to Islamic fundamentalists," he said. "They took a much more serious view of the people operating here - they called it Londonistan because of people like Abu Qatada."

Hassaine said he was asked by the French to spy on Qatada and his followers and this led to an introduction to Special Branch. He was passed to MI5 and his life as a spy, which also meant going undercover at Finsbury Park Mosque, began in earnest:

"I would meet my handler in London's five-star hotels," he said. "It was all very gentlemanly and I was paid a retainer. But I always felt they didn't realise the seriousness of what I was telling them. Sometimes I felt like screaming at my contact: 'Don't you understand the risks these people pose!' The French, who had suffered from Islamic terrorism, were much more aware. Even now, I get the impression that Britain will not come to its senses until something awful happens. Then, of course, it will be too late."

His life as a spy was based on the identity he created of an Algerian Muslim interested in the Jihad movement. He would attend prayer meetings, mingling with Qatada's followers. Then he would write up his notes in secret and present his evidence to his handler. One of the trickiest parts of his work was to persuade Qatada's acolytes that he was one of them.

"Qatada had a hardcore of followers committed to the idea of Jihad - killing infidels for the glory of Islam. They talked of bombing the Underground, car bombs, mass murder ... it is hard for anyone who has not heard him speak to understand the power he exerts over young men. He tells them that the gates to paradise are sealed by two swords, and only by picking up the sword and striking down infidels can the gates be unsealed.

"His words have a way of eating your mind. He stands there with his stick and his big belly, calling on the faithful to murder the infidels. He was the spiritual leader of the GIA in Algeria and he glorified in their atrocities.

"There was a series of murders in which babies were roasted alive in ovens. Qatada justified this by saying the babies had gone to paradise. If they had been allowed to live, he said, they would have followed their apostate parents to hell. The message was: by roasting them alive, their murderers had done them a favour.

"To think of his words now, out of context, away from the hysteria he whipped up, it is hard to see how powerful they were. But he sent hundreds, possibly even thousands, to the training camps in Afghanistan. People were mesmerised by him. When you left his meetings you felt you could pick up a gun and kill, kill, kill."

Such a meeting took place at the Four Feathers youth club near Baker Street in October 1999. Hassaine said Qatada gave his blessing to the killing of Jews, and that Americans should be attacked "wherever they were found". He made no distinction between Jews, Americans and British.

Hassaine's evidence was crucial when Qatada appealed against detention under the emergency anti-terrorism laws. Information he had provided to MI5 was presented to the judge, Mr Justice Collins, who referred to the Four Feathers speech when he dismissed the appeal.

He said the case against Qatada was established and he was " heavily involved, indeed was at the centre in the UK, of terrorist activities associated with al Qaeda. He is a truly dangerous individual."

In April 2000, Hassaine's cover was blown. He had been tracking the movements of people like Richard Reid, the shoe bomber, and Zacharias Moussaoui, the man alleged to have been the intended 20th hijacker in the September 11 attacks. Both were followers of Qatada and had attended his Friday prayer meetings at the Four Feathers club.

When Hassaine attended a Jihad prayer session, he noticed that some regulars were staring at him. He tried to leave quickly after prayers finished and was set upon by a group of loyalists but broke free and ran for his life. "They were on to me," he said. "From that moment I became a marked man." He heard, subsequently, that he had been exposed as an informer, although he still does not know how.

With Qatada locked up in Belmarsh, Hassaine began to breathe a little more easily. Then he learned a fatwa, or decree to murder, had been issued against him. "Abu Qatada wants me dead," he said. "He knows what I have done for the secret services and his followers will do what they believe is his bidding.

"With his release, the whole thing will be revived. He will be able to communicate, even under surveillance, and everything that I tried to stop will start again."

Hassaine has been granted permission to remain in Britain, but he speaks in the conditional, and everything is predicated on being able to escape the fatwa.

"It is hard to make plans," he says, "when to all intents and purposes, you are already a dead man."