Abu Qatada evidence 'extremely thin' - judge

Some of the evidence against radical cleric and terror suspect Abu Qatada is "extremely thin", a senior British judge said at the start of his appeal against extradition to Jordan on Wednesday. Judge John Mitting made the comment at the start of a review of whether the 51-year-old would get a fair trial if he were deported to Jordan. Abu Qatada, a Jordanian national, was convicted in his absence in Jordan in 1998 for involvement in terror attacks. Britain is moving to send him to Jordan after Home Secretary Theresa May was given assurances by the Jordanian authorities that no evidence gained through torture would be used against him. But discussing the case as the hearing began, judge Mitting, president of the Special Immigration Appeals Commission, said: "The evidence seems extremely thin." Abu Qatada, who was once described by a judge as Al-Qaeda terror chief Osama bin Laden's right-hand man in Europe, has spent most of the last seven years in jail and is being held in a high-security prison while he fights deportation. The hearing is expected to last seven days. It comes after another radical Islamist preacher, Abu Hamza, and four other terror suspects were extradited from Britain to the United States on Saturday at the end of a long legal battle to avoid deportation.