Abu Qatada

The Home Office has expressed its opposition to the ruling by the high court that radical Muslim cleric Abu Qatada must be released into the community.

Qatada is accused of posing a grave threat to Britain’s national security, should be released regardless of the risk he poses, his lawyers said

He was released on bail as he fights deportation to Jordan.

Attorney general Dominic Grieve said this morning (Tuesday) that the government had to operate within the law. Whitehall was working to persuade the courts here that no evidence would be used which had been extracted by torture in Jordan.

Ed Fitzgerald QC, representing Qatada, told an immigration judge in central London that Qatada had now been held for six-and-a-half years while fighting deportation.

He told the Special Immigration Appeals Commission (Siac) that that was “against a background of almost nine years detention without charges on the grounds of national security”.

Mr Fitzgerald said: “The detention has now gone on for too long to be reasonable or lawful and there is no prospect of the detention ending in any reasonable period.

“However the risk of absconding, however the risk of further offending, there comes a point when it’s just too long.

“There comes a time when it’s just too long, however grave the risks.”

Mr Fitzgerald added that the eight-and-a-half years Qatada spent in custody was equivalent to a 17-year jail sentence.

The bail hearing was ordered after Qatada, once described by a Spanish judge as “Osama bin Laden’s right-hand man in Europe”, won an appeal to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) last month.