Britain charges Muslim cleric indicted in U.S.

LONDON - Abu Hamza al-Masri, the radical Muslim cleric who faces extradition to the United States, was charged on Tuesday by the British police with encouraging his followers to murder Jews and non-Muslims.

Appearing before a magistrates' court at Belmarsh Prison, Masri was charged with 10 counts of soliciting murder, five counts of "using threatening, abusive or insulting words or behavior with the intention of stirring up racial hatred," and one count of possessing a terrorist document, the Encyclopedia of the Afghani Jihad. If convicted he could receive a life sentence.

The charge states that the document "contained information of a kind likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism."

Masri, who arrived in Britain in 1979, has been in a top-security jail in Britain since May, when he was arrested by the British antiterrorism police on a U.S. extradition warrant. He faces 11 charges in the United States, including hostage-taking and providing material support to al-Qaida and its Taliban allies in Afghanistan.

A federal grand jury in New York indicted Masri in April on charges of seeking to establish a military training camp for Muslim fighters in rural Oregon and orchestrating a plot to take 16 Western tourists hostage in Yemen in 1998. Masri denied the charges.

Attorney General John Ashcroft personally announced those charges at a news conference in New York. Masri is "the real deal," Raymond Kelly, the New York City police commissioner, said at the time. "Think of him as a freelance consultant to terrorist groups worldwide."

But the British police began pursuing their own charges against Masri over the summer. Now the British case, one of the most high-profile terrorism cases in Britain, takes precedence, and the U.S. extradition request will be delayed until after Masri's trial in Britain. One potential problem with the extradition is that British law bars extradition in which the death penalty could be imposed.

Hugo Keith, the lawyer representing the U.S. government, asked the court to adjourn the extradition case until the domestic charges are adjudicated. Masri, 46, who did not wear his customary steel hook in court, did not comment at the hearing or plead to the charges.

A former nightclub bouncer who has lived in Britain for 25 years, Masri has been one of the most visible and high-profile supporters of al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden. On the first two anniversaries of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks the former imam of the Finsbury Park Mosque in north London held public meetings praising the virtues of the hijackers and blaming Jews and the Bush administration for inciting Muslim outrage.

Last year, the Egyptian-born cleric was stripped of his British citizenship and barred from preaching at the mosque. But the imam, who lost and eye and an arm during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, continued to preach on the road outside the mosque.

Both Richard Reid, the so-called shoe bomber, and Zacarias Moussaoui, who is accused of being the 20th hijacker in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in the United States, are said to have attended that mosque before their arrests. Antiterrorism officials have described the mosque as a focus of terrorist planning.

Information from the New York Times, Washington Post and Associated Press was used in this report.

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