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LONDON-Radical Muslim cleric Abu Qatada—once described as Osama bin Laden's ambassador in Europe—was ordered jailed Tuesday by a British judge because of fears he was preparing to abscond.Abu Qatada had been released in June under strict bail conditions that allowed him to leave his home for no more than two hours a day.Judge John Mitting, heading a panel of the Special Immigration Appeals Commission, ordered Abu Qatada be sent back to jail and held under immigration laws.Abu Qatada, who arrived in the U.K. in 1993, was jailed in 2002 over accusations that he played a key role in raising money for extremist groups and provided spiritual advice to militants planning terror attacks. The bail provisions set in June included bans on attending any mosques, having any visitors in his home, and lecturing or leading prayers.He was also barred from having computers, mobile telephones or Internet connections in his home.The British government has been trying to deport Abu Qatada—whose real name is Omar Mahmoud Mohammed Othman—to Jordan, where he has been convicted of terrorist offenses. But British courts have ruled that he could face torture related to two bombings there."He poses a significant threat to our national security and am I pleased that he will be detained pending his deportation, which I am working hard to secure," Home Secretary Jacqui Smith said in a statement.Abu Qatada was not in court for the ruling. His lawyer took exception to the court decision."Bail comes with conditions; breach of those conditions leads to arrest. However, Mr. Othman was arrested ... not because he had broken any condition, but because it was speculated he might abscond in the future," his lawyer, Gareth Pierce, said in a statement.She said that Abu Qatada wasn't even allowed to know what on basis the security services made that claim because the evidence was heard in secret.Some of the government's case and the specific reasons for the panel's decision were contained in documents that were not available to the public for security reasons.But the open judgment says British security services believe "the risk of Qatada absconding has increased since his release."The panel noted that Abu Qatada has said he wants to leave Britain, renounce his Jordanian citizenship and live in the Palestinian territories."We do not, however, see any realistic prospect that either of these two possibilities will be open to him in the near or medium term," they wrote in their open judgment.British government officials have said Abu Qatada has ties to convicted shoe bomber Richard Reid and to Zacarias Moussaoui, the only person charged and convicted in the United States for the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.Authorities accused him of raising large amounts of money for extremist networks in Britain and abroad, and of having provided spiritual guidance and comfort to extremists planning lethal terror attacks.Judge Baltasar Garzon, a prominent Spanish judge who has prosecuted a number of terror cases, has accused Abu Qatada of being bin Laden's spiritual ambassador in Europe.Others have said he acted as the al-Qaida leader's banker in the years before the 9/11 attacks, which brought increased scrutiny of the financial networks used by extremists to move money throughout the world.As in the days of Noah...
