Most people’s first reaction to the news that the remarkably unphotogenic Abu Hamza ("evil Abu Hamza” as the Sun calls him) is on his way to Florence, the pitiless maximum security prison in Colorado, will be to say “well, at last”. But many will also ask why we have to wait another three months to give him the chance of appealing to the magniloquently named “Grand Chamber” of the European Court of Human Rights. In the words of one MP: “If the French government can stick troublemakers on a plane and kick them out within 48 hours then we ought to be able to do the same as well.” And the apparent inconsistency between this judgment and that which barred the Government from extraditing Abu Qatada has not gone unnoticed; this has led some commentators to accuse the ECHR of coming to a politically expedient decision not to block Hamza’s extradition to the US for fear of the reaction of British public opinion. They have, thinks the Mail, been motivated by
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Abu Hamza is off to face US justice, and not before time. But the case of Babar Ahmad seems different: will he now undergo yet another extradition injustice?
He doesn’t even know the charges against him: so much for justice being seen to be done
William Oddie

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